


Crimeful

by the_aesthetic_of_happiness



Series: the crimeful contempire [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Action & Romance, Amnesia, Angst with a Happy Ending, Assassins & Hitmen, Denial of Feelings, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Roller Coaster, Everyone Is Gay, Falling In Love, Fluff, Huang Ren Jun is Whipped, Implied/Referenced Sex, Lee Jeno & Na Jaemin Are Best Friends, M/M, Mafia NCT, Minor Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee, Minor Park Jisung/Zhong Chen Le, OT21 (NCT), Plotty, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Serial Killers, Slow Burn, Strangers to Friends to Lovers, Zombies, hey have you or a loved one been suffering from a lack of quality nct fanfiction?, well well well... then this is the fic for u
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:08:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 18
Words: 185,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22933069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_aesthetic_of_happiness/pseuds/the_aesthetic_of_happiness
Summary: Renjun? The mafia boss. Polite. Cold. Unlawful.Jeno? Sweet, mellow, and a little bit clueless when it comes to serial lawbreaking.Slowly, they fall in love. Very, very slowly.
Relationships: Huang Ren Jun/Lee Jeno
Series: the crimeful contempire [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790509
Comments: 268
Kudos: 516





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, this is my first ao3 fic :) I adore noren and this fic is so near and dear to my heart oml.
> 
> While the dreamies are the main characters here, every NCT member (ot21) shows up and has a role at one point. Also, I'm a multi, so there's just an enormous enormous amount of idol cameos in here --- I had a great time incorporating all my favorite kpop groups into this crime world as various figureheads eheheh I think I've included like half of the kpop world by now but who's complaining? def not me
> 
> The plot here is thicc. There's a loooot of complexity and thought that went into the plot arcs, not to mention the character dynamics and also the worldbuilding (we've got everything folks: fluff, angst, mystery, serial killers, strip clubs, pole dancing, circuit racing, the undead, corruption everywhere u look, boys being gay, and ofc good ol mafia biz). Mind the archive warnings! In this story there are some heavy themes of grief, violence, and, well, crime. Ages are pretty much canon except for chensung and yangyang, i aged them down a lil so they could be cute high schoolers uwu. 
> 
> I really hope you enjoy!

Renjun was not what Jeno expected.

That’s what Jeno told people when they asked what it was like to meet him. Jeno figured everyone probably expected it to be traumatic. And it was, in a way, because how can meeting the mafia leader not be traumatic?

Jeno showed up at 3 pm on the dot. The mafia boss lived in a mansion on the mountain on the east side of the metropolis, deep in the darkest, roughest parts of town, but his home was splendid. The front lawn was fresh grass trimmed exactly 1.5 inches—peculiar, seeing as how most people these days didn’t even _have_ real grass, instead opting for the store-bought pseudoplastic type—and the roses were expertly pruned, climbing up the hooded entrance to the garden whose paths buckled and wove like a maze. 

Hiking up the mountain would have been a sizable feat for any athlete—except Jeno wasn’t athletic, having given up that lifestyle years ago back when he’d been on his high school basketball team. By the time he arrived at the front door, he was embarrassingly out of breath.

The door was an intimidating block of solid stone that stretched twenty feet tall and had an outdated brass knocker ring. Jeno reached up to knock. Then he dropped his hand, turned away, took a few deep breaths, and checked his reflection in his holo-phone. His glasses were foggy from the exertion of climbing the mountain. He took them off to let them return to normal, and then peered at his selfie camera once more.

Fluffy brown hair, large chocolate-colored eyes. Jeno was the type of guy who had always seemed younger than he was. He drew his eyebrows together in an attempt to make himself look older, and wilted when it didn’t work.

His fingernails tapped against his holo-phone in his back pocket. He considered holo-phoning his friend, but Jaemin would be at work. And even if he did pick up, all he would do is to try to persuade Jeno to turn around and go back home. 

Jeno would not go back home.

 _White hands, whiter eyeballs. A hoarse voice like burnt glass, begging through a camera. A face haunted by delusions and fatigue and fatigue and delusions and blue and black bruises and_ —

He buried his head in his hands and squeezed his eyes shut against the unwelcome memories. 

A long moment passed. When he sensed it was over, he stood up (he didn’t remember sitting down, but panic attacks had a habit of numbing his mind) and distracted his brain by running his eyes over the scenery in front of him. 

It really was a beautiful garden. The roses were red and plump and even looked real.

He stepped forward, plucked one from a bush, and lifted it to his nose. His eyes widened at its fragrance and he carefully tucked it into his backpack to show Jaemin later.

Then he steeled himself, turned back toward the door, and knocked.

He was greeted by a young, atrociously tall, pink-haired man in a tuxedo who regarded Jeno with an appraising look. Jeno swallowed and immediately folded himself into a bow. He had rehearsed what he was going to say so many times in order not to be nervous, but he still found his hands shaking.

“My—my name is—I’m here to—I mean, my name is—”

Jeno felt a hand on his shoulder and cut himself off. He looked up to find the boy—yes, he was too young to be a man—giving him a small, slightly surprised smile. 

“I’m just the door keeper,” he said. “Save that for the boss himself.”

Jeno’s face prickled with embarrassment. He cleared his throat and the door keeper ushered him inside. The mansion looked like something out of a villain lair movie set. The carpets were bloodblue and the floor gleamed of immaculate star-shaped tiles fitted together in some sort of mural that was too enormous for Jeno to wrap his head around what it might depict. Above him, a chandelier laden with crystals sent fractals of light dancing all around the mansion interior, which consisted of a bubbling liquid chocolate fountain flanked by twin glass staircases that spiraled upward into enormous funnels that hugged the mansion walls.

Jeno craned his head up to see if he could spot the ceiling, but all the mansion seemed to extend upward into eternity. The only sign that it had an end was a tiny, faraway skylight the size of a pinhead. 

The pink-haired door-keeper reached to pull off Jeno’s coat for him. 

“Oh,” Jeno said. “Thank you. You don’t need to do that for me, though.”

“Trust me,” said the servant, placing Jeno’s ruddy jean jacket onto a golden hook near the door. “It’s better if you don’t have this when you go to see the master.”

Jeno blinked at that. His gaze dropped to his own worn-out sneakers, which had left visible prints trailing from where he’d entered the door.

Of course. He was entirely out of his element. Hell, the carpet was fucking _bloodblue_ —a color that had only been invented last month. Rumor had it that the Color Factorial had had bloodblue on backorder ever since it was announced. The fact that there was someone wealthy enough to already own an entire carpet in the color was deeply unsettling.

“It’s a good thing you made an appointment, Lee,” said the pink-haired servant as he headed up one of the glass staircases, Jeno following behind him. “Too many people barge in here thinking that about anyone can have the boss’s time. They’re way off.”

“You know my name?” Jeno said, struggling to keep up. The stairs were broad and while Jeno’s legs were long, it was hard to maintain the strict pace that the other boy had set.

“Of course. Because you made an appointment.”

“Right. Right.”

They climbed in silence, passing doorway after doorway on their ascent. When Jeno checked his watch, which was positively slippery from all the sweat that had accumulated on his skin, ten minutes had passed since his arrival. 

“What does Huang keep in these rooms?” he muttered to himself, pausing to brace himself against the banister. 

The servant glanced back at him. “Weapons.”

Jeno blinked. “. . . What?”

The pink-haired boy gestured at a door as they passed it. “Yeah. Some are to disarm the people who attack the house.”

“Like me, if I was an attacker.”

“Yeah. Otherwise, the weapons are the carry out the boss’s orders.”

“What kind of orders?”

“The ones that call for weapons.”

“Oh,” said Jeno. Then— “Don’t you guys have an elevator?”

“We’re here.” The servant knocked on the closest door and Jeno realized it was the last one on the wall. One glance upward showed him that they had finally, truly reached the top of the mansion—the skylight that had from far away appeared as a pinprick of light was in reality an enormous glass dome that sat atop the tower like a cap.

Jeno glanced down. The mural way down on the floor was visible now; it was a depiction of a Moomin, an ancient cartoon character with enormous puppy eyes and two small triangle ears. 

Jeno’s brow furrowed. “What. . .”

“The boss is waiting,” said the pink-haired servant, and swung open the door and gently propelled Jeno inside.

The door shut behind him. Jeno took in his surroundings.

The room was flooded with sunshine, what with its glass walls baring the entirety of the Los Angeles contempire in all of its industrial glory. Spindly business towers prodded the sky like curious children wondering just how tall they could grow, while floating holo-billboards in the three dominant languages of the world flickered through the air and advertised the current back-to-school sales. Up here, multi-colored smoke could be seen puffing gamely out of the spires of the Color Factorial, which was just on the west side of the metropolis.

In the center of the room itself was a leather couch and a low tea table with two saucers and cups. The only other thing in the room was a swivel chair near the window, and a person sitting in it, his back faced away from Jeno like every detective holo-movie in the history of holo-movies.

“Um,” said Jeno. “Are you. . . ?”

The person in the chair nodded, his face still turned away. “You are Mr. Lee. Care to have a seat, sir?”

Jeno eyed the sofa, then glanced about, wondering briefly if the room had been bugged to record their conversation. “You don’t need to call me sir. Or Mister.”

“Would you rather I call you Client Lee?” 

“No,” Jeno said quickly, because _client_ sounded intimidating, almost as if he and the man sitting in front of him were on the same social tier. Which they weren’t, at all.

“Please, then, sir. Sit down. Have some tea.”

Jeno sank onto the sofa and reached for his cup, grateful for something to wet his parched throat. “Thank you.”

The swivel chair spun around.

If Jeno hadn’t been so focused on his drink, he would have been blown away by the drama of Renjun’s appearance. Sunlight clung to the other man’s hair, dyed a pale lavender-blue, and his face was disconcertingly perfect: straight brows and a flawless nose bridge and two almond eyes that shone darkly of intelligence. He wore a plain black turtleneck and a long, thin, golden chain from which dangled a small circular pendant.

“What brings you here, sir?” asked Huang Renjun, leader of the mafia.

Jeno sipped his hot drink. He wasn’t listening. “Why was it so long?”

Renjun’s eyebrow quirked suggestively. “Why was what so long?”

“The walk,” Jeno elaborated. “From the sidewalk to your front door. Those gardens—and then this big staircase—”

“I think the long walk is good for the mind,” said Renjun. “It is like . . . preparation. Because if you aren’t willing to walk for 20 extra minutes, are you really willing to meet with me?”

Jeno set down his teacup and looked up for the first time. “Well, I suppose you’re . . .”

He trailed off, all of his thoughts slowing to a stop as he took in the man in front of him. 

_Sunday mornings, sandalwood underneath fingertips. A pleasant breeze that ached of acrylics and canvas. Jerseys sticking to skin, smiles traded between the court and bleachers, tangled legs, paper airplanes, an irreversible grief_ —

“Sir,” said the man sitting across from Jeno, and Jeno startled out of the memories. 

Memories. Where had they come from? What had just happened?

Jeno shook his head. “Sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to stare. I—Please don’t mind me.”

Renjun smiled, unperturbed. Jeno got the feeling that Renjun was used to being given the double-takes and fleeting stares that beautiful people often found themselves the recipients of.

“Thank you for making an appointment,” said Renjun, picking up his teacup. “What brings you here today?”

The question wiped Jeno’s mind of all the clutter it had just been in. There was a reason why he was here. He had something he needed to do.

Jeno took a deep breath. “I want you to kill the woman who killed my older brother.”

Renjun raised his teacup. “That is a request to make of the assassin leader, not of me.”

“She turned me away.” Jeno leaned forward. “I’ll pay double if you do it.”

“Double? How did your brother die?”

“He. . .” Jeno closed his eyes briefly. There was ugliness brewing in his stomach, a turmoil bred from rage and rage and helplessness and rage. He willed it to calm down long enough for him to make it out of this appointment without hurling himself out the glass windows. “He was tortured to death.”

“What kind of torture?” Renjun asked.

“Sleep-deprivation. He went mad. Then he died.”

“Well,” Renjun said. “I offer you my condolences. I’m very sorry for your loss.”

At that, Jeno blinked. What Renjun had just said were the words of practically everyone in Jeno’s life lately—except he’d never expected to hear it from a man who was rumored to be woven from darkness and deceit and devil spawn.

“Um . . . thank you.”

“What would you like me to do about his murderer?” Renjun asked, setting his elbows on his knees.

“Murder her.”

Renjun’s eyes glinted. “What is your preference?”

“I’m bi,” Jeno said.

“I meant your murder preference.”

“I don’t murder.”

“I _meant_ , how would you prefer the murder to be executed?”

“ _Oh_ ,” Jeno said. “Please torture her.”

Renjun leaned back. “That takes my time and effort. Torture is a special service we only provide to platinum members.”

Jeno almost laughed at the ridiculous businesslike quality of this transaction. He felt like he’d discovered a secret hidden pocket of the criminal world that two weeks ago he never would have imagined stepping foot into. “Triple, then. Let’s take this from double to triple.”

Renjun shook his head. “I’m afraid I can’t accept that, sir.”

“Why not?”

“You have to be platinum.”

“Platinum would mean I’m a frequent customer of yours,” Jeno said, “but I am here for a one-time request and purchase.”

Renjun stood up and walked over to the window, clasping his hands behind him. His eyes ran across the cityscape. He had the calculating, comfortable gaze of a natural-born leader, and Jeno couldn’t help but feel that somehow Huang Renjun was terribly, horribly, deliciously wrought with power. 

“Are you certain about that?” said Renjun. “You never know, but I’ve found that people often begin to utilize our services more and more frequently after their debut purchase.”

“This,” said Jeno, “is my last purchase.”

Renjun looked at him for a time.

Then he said, “What’s her name?”

“Geum, surname Joo.”

“Joo Geum,” echoes Renjun. “Photo?”

Jeno showed him the picture he kept in his pocket. From the mugshot grinned a woman with mousy brown hair and cheeks covered in freckles. “She’s 28. Lives in New Chicago.”

“Okay.” The mafia leader took the photo and studied it. “We offer an add-on to your purchase if you’re interested in getting revenge against her family.”

Jeno waited for his stomach to turn at Renjun’s offer—and was only mildly surprised when revulsion never came. Jeno from two weeks ago would have been ashamed of the person he was now. 

“How much is the add-on?”

“33.3% of your purchase’s original price. 5% more per family member after the first two.”

Jeno weighed that cost. He still had to pay the electricity bill for his apartment, plus then there was his little brother’s school fees. School was starting soon and was not free; not only that, but he had to factor in his little brother’s lunch money. He racked up the numbers quickly: $4 per cafeteria pizza slice, $2 bucks per juice box, there were 5 days in a school week and that would be $90 per month. Chenle would only be a high school sophomore—Jeno didn’t even want to think about supplying his lunch money for the rest of his high school career. 

“No,” sighed Jeno finally. “No family revenge. I’m good.”

“Are you certain?”

“Yes.”

“Okay.” Renjun gave him a businessman’s smile. “Is that all?”

“I . . . Yes.”

Things progressed in a dizzying order from there. Renjun produced a contract and held it out to Jeno, who tried his best to read it over before scribbling his name on the line that said SIGN HERE. Then Renjun had him reiterate the details of his purchase, just for affirmations, while Renjun took short notes with a golden fountain pen on a fancy notepad the whole while. Finally, Renjun downed the rest of his tea, Jeno hastened to follow suit, and when both of their cups landed with matching _clinks_ down on the table, it was almost an indication of the deal being sealed.

“Alright, sir,” Renjun said, standing up and showing him toward the door, “please have a safe journey home.”

“Don’t—don’t you want the money now?” asked Jeno.

“I shall send someone to collect the payment after the job is complete.”

“Uh,” said Jeno. “How would you prove it’s complete?”

“We provide hard photo evidence. Plus, complimentary video footage. Would you like to receive the video footage?”

“I . . . Yes. I would.”

“It will be emailed to you, then, within three to five business days.”

Jeno frowned. “Do you need me to give you my email?”

“No, that’s alright. I already have it.”

By now, Jeno was out the door, standing in the hall, with Renjun leaning against the doorframe with a disarmingly normal smile, looking for all the world like an ordinary young man who might have been a college student like Jaemin.

“How do you have my email?” wondered Jeno.

“You are my client, sir,” was all Renjun said. 

Just like that, the door closed. Just like that, the transaction was over.

Jeno started down the stairs in a daze. 

_Strange_ , he thought. _He is so strange. And absurdly polite._

He couldn’t stop thinking about that weird barrage of memories he’d had that first moment he’d seen him. God, Renjun must have thought that Jeno was _ogling_ him. How mortifying. 

He shook his head and continued down the stairs, pausing once to wonder about the Moomin mural that rested easily in his gaze like he’d seen it before. Where had he seen it before?

Enough. As soon as Jeno got home, he would eat three slices of pie and then take a long shower. He totally deserved it.

###

“Was he hot?”

“No,” said Jeno through a mouthful of candied strawberries. “I mean, sure? He’d probably be hot to, like, anyone who was into baby killers and moonshine bootleggers and that sort of stuff."

“Really?” Jaemin leaned over the kitchen countertop. He was dressed in his apron, a thin green thing that had an embroidered message reading _Send Your Compliments To Me, I Am The Chef_. The apron was dusted with an absurd amount of flour. Jaemin was a good baker, but a messy one, and Jeno suspected he wasted more ingredients in his klutz than he actually used any.

They were in Jeno’s apartment, a one-bedroom shack that could only be described as crappy. It had a bathroom the size of a closet and an air conditioning system that did little to help ease the rank summer smell of _boy_ that had established itself when they moved in two weeks ago. The only furniture in the apartment was a ratty mattress on the floor as well as a beat-up, puke-colored loveseat smushed against the wall that the previous residents hadn’t cared about enough to take with them. And then there was the collapsible, low-lying wooden table that Jeno and Chenle brought out for meals. 

The miniature kitchen was miniature in every aspect: a small island counter, a tiny oven, a stovetop that seemed always cluttered with unwashed dishes, and a mini refrigerator that sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. 

“It’s a miracle you managed to bake this,” said Jeno, meaning the custard tart on the plate that he was currently cradling between his palms. “I know the baking equipment here is probably shittier than shit.”

“Does it taste good, though?” Jaemin said. “My God, _can’t_ you use a fork for once?”

Jeno poked his chopsticks into his friend’s shoulder, then used them to pluck a strawberry from the top of the custard tart. He chomped on it cheerfully. “It’s good.”

The sweet flavor of powdered sugar and fructose corn syrup on his tongue made Jeno feel a little better. About everything. About today. About this. When he had gotten home today from the visit at Huang’s, he had been a millimeter away from flopping onto the floor and crying his eyes out—he hadn’t heard Jaemin ring the doorbell, and Jaemin had climbed in through the apartment window to find Jeno halfway inside the mini refrigerator on the verge of tears, desperately gulping down Red Bull to keep himself from falling asleep.

Jeno hadn’t had any real sleep in maybe fifteen days.

“You still haven’t told me,” Jaemin said, wagging his eyebrows at Jeno. “What the mafia man looks like. Is he hot?”

“He was really young. It was kind of weird. Like, there I was, expecting some old geezer with a mustache and trench coat or something. But he actually looked really. . .”

“Really what?”

 _Normal. He looked normal._ “Why do you care about this so much?”

“Well, was he a hunk or _not_?”

Jeno laughed— “You absolute hoe”—and pushed at Jaemin’s chest. His hand came away covered in white. “Eww, look, I’m all floury.”

The bathroom door opened and out walked Jeno’s little brother, fresh out of the shower, dressed in Spider-Man pajamas and drying off his hair with a towel. He glanced up at the two older boys in the kitchen and frowned. 

“Hi Chenle!” Jeno squeaked. “Uh. We weren’t talking about anything.”

“Didn’t hear most of your guys’ conversation,” Chenle said, “but I heard that last sentence. For the record, hoe is not a particularly flowery word.”

“No, not—” Jeno stopped. His eyes widened. Flowers. “Wait, hold on.”

He all but dove for his backpack, unzipping the glove compartment. As he rummaged around, he hoped the rose he’d taken from Huang’s garden hadn’t died since he last saw it. How long did it take for a flower to die? A few hours? 

He breathed a sigh of relief when he found the rose, which was still intact, only just folded at one of the petals. Jaemin and Chenle’s jaws both dropped when Jeno held it up in the air.

“What the fuck,” Chenle whispered. “Is that.”

Even Jaemin was so shocked that he forgot to reprimand Chenle for cursing. “Wow. Oh, my gosh. Is that . . . ? Jeno, is that—”

“An honest-to-God _flower_ ,” preened Jeno. “Found it in the mafia mansion’s garden. Crazy, right? Here, wanna touch it? Careful for the thorns.”

Jaemin gingerly accepted the rose from Jeno, bringing it to eye level and examining it. Then he closed his eyes and took a deep whiff of its petals and Jeno could almost _see_ Jaemin internally fangirling.

“Let me see,” whined Chenle, who had come over to the two of them. “Come on, give it.”

Jaemin didn’t let the younger boy hold it for very long. Soon he snatched it back from Chenle and held it jealously to his chest. “I’m going to put it in a cup of water.”

“Will it grow?” Jeno asked.

“No, my teacher said they don’t grow unless you’ve got seeds,” Chenle sighed. He sat down at the dining table and reached for the book sitting there—it was a book with two solemn, fire-filled eyes gazing out of the cover—but paused halfway to make it through an enormous yawn.

Jeno’s heart twisted. Chenle had been staying up late these days, immersing himself in literature around the clock. He hadn’t always been a big reader . . . _It must be a coping tactic_ , Jeno realized.

Their eldest brother had raised them off basketball. _My sibs can’t be absolute nerds,_ Mark had joked. 

Chenle hadn’t been playing lately. Jeno guessed that he just couldn’t bring himself to look at a basketball anymore—honestly, neither could Jeno.

“Okay, Lele,” said Jaemin, untying his apron and putting it on the counter. “Time for you to go to bed. School starts next week and you gotta start getting back onto a normal sleep schedule. Also, don’t you have a new student orientation tomorrow morning?”

“I’m not tired,” mumbled Chenle.

But he let Jaemin piggy-back him all the way to the sofa, where he curled up underneath a throw blanket and readily shut his eyes. Jeno was distracted by a notification on his holo-phone. It was a SNS post from one of the celebrities he followed: an viral influencer who went by the household name of Ten. Jeno tapped on the notification and grinned at the video Ten had posted. It was a thirty-two second silent vlog of him visiting a pet store and petting the kittens there.

Jeno rewatched the video six or seven times, mostly because he missed his own cat.

Jaemin came back over, having finished singing Chenle to sleep. 

“Come on,” Jaemin said, tugging on his phone to get him to put it down. “You need to go to bed.”

“I don’t wanna.”

“Well, I think I’ll stick around here for a little while longer. My parents are having a spat again.” Jaemin rolled his eyes. “It’s fine with you if I stay here, yeah?” 

They both knew that Jeno wanted him to stay. Hell, Jeno _needed_ him to stay.

“But I don’t wanna go to sleep,” was what Jeno said, knowing it sounded childish. Still, there was something about his little brother being asleep and out of earshot that made Jeno feel like it was okay to act like a kid. 

“I know, honey.” Jaemin‘s voice was gentle. “Just lie down with me.”

Jeno stared stubbornly at his phone. Jaemin leaned his elbows against the counter and drew in a deep breath.

“Look, Jeno. About the appointment you had with the mafia.”

Jeno’s shoulders hunched, in defense mode already. “What about it?”

“Are you . . . sure you should have done that?”

Jeno willed the ugly war in his gut to calm down. “We’ve been over this.” 

His voice was a warning: _leave it be._

“But,” said Jaemin, “you know. It’s—it’s just—you know.”

Jeno shook his head slowly.

_Please leave it be._

“Is it too late to ask for a refund?” Jaemin pressed. “You don’t know what that man is capable of. He’s the closest thing to a villain this contempire has ever seen. And I _know_ this morning you texted me saying that you felt good about this and were ready to face the crime and everything, but I think you still need to give this more thought since there could be so many repercussions—”

“I don’t care,” gritted Jeno through clenched teeth.

“I care!” Jaemin’s voice rose in pitch. “I just don’t want my best friend to become a murderer!”

“ _Then maybe she shouldn’t have murdered Mark,_ ” shouted Jeno.

Chenle stirred from the couch at Jeno’s outburst. Jaemin stared at Jeno, his eyes wide with hurt. 

Jeno dropped his gaze guiltily.

“I miss him,” he whispered. “I just miss him so fucking much.”

There was a long silence.

“Alright,” Jaemin whispered back. “I get it.”

Jeno shoveled another chopstick scoop of custard into his mouth. “Can you stay over tonight?” he mumbled, and just with that simple familiar question, the tension between them faded. Jeno and Jaemin could never stay mad at each other for long.

“Okay,” said Jaemin. “I will.”

Jeno sighed in a quiet relief and licked excess sugar off of his chopsticks before depositing them and the dirty plate on top of the stove. One day he’d get around to doing those dishes. 

Jaemin got him to brush his teeth and change into pajamas before Jeno crawled into bed beside him. They lay there for some time, in the solemn darkness. Until Jeno made a soft noise of neediness and Jaemin scooted closer to cuddle, hugging Jeno from behind, then pressing his cheek into the crook of Jeno’s shoulder. Humming quiet notes. Trying to shelter him from the world of nightmares that rose to claim Jeno every time he closed his eyes.

Eventually, inevitably, Jeno fell into the fitful semi-conscious restlessness that had characterized his past two dozen nights. In his dreams swam roses, lavender pendants, and white eyeballs, all in a sea of blood and glass. He whimpered and tossed and turned—Jaemin hugged him tighter.

###

_Mark had been Jeno’s closest friend._

_Of course, there was Jaemin, but Jaemin had always seemed like a brother. He and Jeno could insult each other one day, knock each other around the next, and end up in each other’s arms by the end of the week._

_Mark, on the other hand, had a more delicate dynamic with Jeno. Neither of them dared cross each other, for fear that one misplaced emotion might wreck them both. That was the way of friendship: you conceded, you compromised, because friendship was not as permanent as brotherhood._

_Strange, right?_

_That Jeno’s friend was like a brother and Jeno’s brother was like a friend._

_But a sibling was a sibling. For each other, siblings could raise hell on earth and twist the world inside out and upside-down._

###

In his office, on the three hundred thirty-third floor of his mansion, the mafia leader paced.

His boots clopped in rhythm on the carpet underneath him. He was still in his work clothes, despite it being nearly morning, and his golden necklace swung gently with every step he took. Occasionally he rubbed his thumb against the pendant in an obvious old habit—he had been pacing for hours and his lavender hair was a disheveled mess from him running his hands through it.

The phone rang. He reluctantly picked it up.

“Sir?” It was his secretary. A newbie, judging by the way their voice cracked slightly when addressing Renjun. Renjun went through so many weak secretaries that he didn’t even know which one this was. “I’ve got the lieutenant of the assassin’s guild on the line. She wants to speak with you.”

“Okay. Connect her.”

There was a click, a fumbling noise, and then a new, feminine voice came through the phone. Kang Seulgi, the petite yet fearsome right-hand of the assassin leader. 

“I called to talk about Lee,” she said. 

“How’s it going, Kang,” Renjun said emotionlessly. “Which Lee?”

In the world of business, people addressed each other strictly by their last names, but sometimes further clarification was necessary. 

“Lee Jeno. The kid? Your age? The one who met with you today?”

Renjun pursed his lips. “Who?”

“Don’t play dumb.” Her voice rose. “I have a witness. They say you and Lee had a meeting today. Did you agree to do what he asked for? God tell me you didn’t agree to do what he asked for.”

 _A witness_. Renjun scowled. One of his employees was leaking information. “So what if I did? His price was certainly reasonable.”

“ _Huang._ The woman that Lee is out to kill is one of the most revered members of the SKS. If you touch her, you’re going to be in very deep shit with the rest of her members—not to mention that you’re not even supposed to be dealing with assassinations anyway!”

“Aha,” said Renjun. “I was wondering why you had turned down Lee’s request. I’ve never heard of Joo Geum being involved with the Serial Killer Society before, though. Why should I believe you?”

“What? Fine. Look.” Seulgi’s voice hardened. “I’m not here to give you advice or be up your ass. I’m just warning you. If you drag me, my leader, or my guild into a mess with the SKS, you can consider our alliance over.” 

“Fine,” Renjun said, although his relationship with the assassin’s guild was hardly a true alliance. Renjun didn’t trust allies or the idea of having them. “I’ll make sure it’s clear that the job wasn’t done by you.”

“You better.”

She ended the phone call. Renjun set the phone down.

Then he picked it back up and dialed reception. The wobbly-voiced secretary picked up. “H—Hello, sir?”

“You’re fired,” said Renjun calmly.

“What? I—I don’t know what you mean, sir—”

Stuttering. Definitely a mole. “Just be grateful you haven’t worked for me very long,” sighed Renjun. “It’s only been a day and a half, right? If you’d been around here long enough to pick up any actually important information, I might have had to kill you.”

The other side of the line was quiet.

“Do you want me to kill you?” Renjun’s voice was cool steel.

“No. No, sir. I’ll . . . I’ll get going right away.”

“Good. Shave your head. Or dye it back to whatever color it was originally. Relinquish your white card to the storage room—and remember, from here on out, you are no longer affiliated with me, my name, or my company anymore. Thank you. Good night.”

Renjun hung up before the secretary could say anything. Then he slumped against the wall, rubbing his face as if the action might ease his fatigue. He was getting tired of firing his secretaries—this one hadn't even lasted a week, for crying out loud.

The sun was coming up, dying the cityscape a watery pinkish-gray, and Renjun wanted nothing more than to curl up on the floor and go to sleep.

No. He shook himself awake and straightened the sleeves of his turtleneck sweater. There was still work to be done, jobs to be completed.

Besides, rumor had it that the mafia boss never really slept anyway. Renjun would hate to deviate from that. Living up to rumors was half his job and then some. 

As he sat down at his desk and opened his laptop to start combing recently received job applications for a new secretary, he absently flicked his locket open and shut, open and shut, with satisfying _clicks_. After a while, he lifted the pendant to his eyes to peer at the tiny photograph inside. 

He’d already memorized every detail of the photo; in it were two boys, grinning at the camera, their arms hooked around each other in a portrayal of easy childhood intimacy. One of the boys had fluffy brown hair and eyes curved into smiling crescents—the other boy, a little shorter, wore a beret and a Moomin T-shirt, and looked just like Renjun.

Renjun regarded the photo without emotion, then sighed and tucked the pendant underneath his shirt. In this life, he didn’t have room for nostalgia.

In this life, there was very room for any sentiment, at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The book that Chenle is reading is The Great Gatsby, by Fitzgerald. Some of the themes and aesthetics in this fic are inspired by that book :)
> 
> The word 죽음 (joo geum) means death in korean. and because i am: creative, i made it the name of the person who killed mork. heh dont hate me
> 
> If you're liking this fic so far, pls let me know!
> 
> Stay safe, get sleep, eat protein <3
> 
> ~ Yerin 022820


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who left kudos on the first chapter! I'll try to update about once a week.
> 
> I send digital fingerhearts to yoonie_seo for being my beta. ily sm, hearteu hearteu
> 
> On with the chapter!

Ten was taking photos of himself in a gilded bathroom.

He wore a red suit, but no undershirt, and his bare chest gleamed in the flickering candlelight of the room. He lounged in a bouncy swivel chair stolen from his stylist’s supply closet and tried his best to take selfies from an upper angle while also tilting his neck so his jawline was illuminated in precisely the right way. His fans had a penchant for his jawline.

“Ten?” There was a knock on the door. “You in there?”

“No,” he called, snapping another photo, then scrolling through the editing features to find an appropriate filter. He was in a vintage mood today. 

“Don’t tell me you’re live-streaming while on the toilet,” came the baritone voice from outside. “That’d be some actual shit.”

Ten snorted. “You need to find some fresh puns.” He pushed himself up from his swivel chair and opened the door, revealing a tall man with casually styled chestnut-brown hair waiting there for him. “What is it, Johnny?”

His stylist’s drop earrings glittered as his gaze slid up and down Ten’s form, as if checking to make sure that Ten hadn’t really been filming something without pants on. “You’ve got a visitor.”

Ten blinked. “Oh. Just when I was about to head home for the day. More work? Love that.”

“Stop,” Johnny laughed with a good-natured scowl. “C’mon. It’s some kid asking for a job. Somehow he’s found out about our . . . er, specific line of work.”

Ten frowned. “Is he a fan of mine?”

“I don’t think so? Look, I don’t know. He’s awfully twitchy. Just talk to him yourself, will you?”

Ten sighed and strode out from the bathroom. “Fine. Guess my fans will have to wait for an SNS update from me.”

Johnny jogged after him. “Is that what you were doing? Taking selfies? Ah, must’ve been because of the good lighting. I think it’s the LEDs that I got installed into the mirror framework.”

They passed by offices that were vacated due to work hours being over. “Actually,” Ten said, “I didn’t even use the LEDs. Candlelight worked just fine.”

“Oh.” 

“Why?” asked Ten. “You bothered by that?” He gave him a coy look. “Gonna pin me against a wall?”

This time, Johnny’s scowl was real. “Ten, I’d never do that to you.”

Ten looked away. He sighed.  _ Figures _ . Johnny never let Ten flirt with him.  _ He’s probably only disturbed at the notion that the candles in the bathroom hadn’t been extinguished before they’d left. _

Johnny’s next words confirmed his assumption. “Did you at least blow out the flames? I don’t want the building burning down.”

“Ha,” Ten said, turning a corner down the hall toward the coffee room. That was where he met with official people to drink expensive overseas coffee brands and conduct official business, which was mostly just arranging sponsorships and public appearances. Ten liked being an influencer, but it was sometimes kind of monotonous, and he’d had way too many cups of coffee in his lifetime that he’d started considering switching over to tea or something. He would have done that a long time ago, if his acquaintance Huang hadn’t made it  _ his _ trademark to meet with customers over a cup of tea. “Of course I didn’t blow out the candles. Everyone loves the smell of fresh vanilla.”

“Well, okay,” said Johnny, opening the door to the tearoom for Ten. “But I don’t think those candles were vanilla-scented. We had them imported from New Vietnam and I think they were scented with . . . bloodblue?”

“I thought that was a color, not a scent,” Ten said as he entered the tearoom. It was a gorgeous place, with its red velvet walls and plush parlor seats and chic little table lamps that were shaped like plump goldfish bowls. 

“Yeah, no, I read somewhere on the Dark Net that it was a scent before it was a color,” said Johnny. “Oh—hello, there. I see you haven’t moved from where I left you.”

There was a boy sitting on the couch bouncing his knee nervously, wearing a long sleeved shirt and a vest with a red-and-blue striped tie. He looked younger than Ten. 

“Hello,” said the boy, offering Ten a weak smile. “My name is Na Jaemin. And I’d like to work as a stripper in your club.”

###

“Come on,” Jeno said, practically whining. “Get in the car.”

On the front step of the apartment complex, Chenle peered dubiously at the ratty, beat-up holo-vehicle parked haphazardly on the curb before him. Jeno had rented it off EBay for three months, believing he’d scored big with the purchase since it seemed cheaper than three months’ accumulations of the cost of Jaemin’s morning espresso—yet even Jeno couldn’t help but admit that the car was really literally a piece of junk. It could barely drive in a straight line, much less hover the way it was supposed to.

“No thanks.” Chenle hefted his backpack and started off down the road. “I’m out. I’m taking my ass to school on foot.”

Jeno fell into step beside him. Chenle gave him a weird look—it said,  _ how dare you follow me, you protective-ass grandpa? _ —but both of them knew it was probably for the best. They lived on the east side of the metropolis and it wasn’t safe for even a grown man to walk down these streets, even in broad daylight. Jeno himself had been mugged twice since moving in.

“I know you’ve never liked cars,” said Jeno. “But.”

“But what?” Chenle stared straight ahead. “But I should get over it?”

“Well . . . maybe you should?” Jeno’s voice was small. 

Chenle hadn’t deigned to respond. Jeno hadn’t pressed. They each had their reasons.

Chenle’s school wasn’t really a school. Technically it was a converted factory that was previously owned by Color Factorial and then relinquished to the city upon public complaints of color pollution. Jeno grimaced when he saw the campus, which was little more than a building of twisted black metal that still had the Color Factorial logo plastered to its side and stripes of rainbow arcing up both sides of the building entrance.

Rumor had it that the owner of the Color Factorial, a young man a few years older than Jeno, was gay as fuck and never lost an opportunity to include a pride flag on his property.

However, the factory  _ was  _ supposed to be a school now, and the rainbows had been partially covered up by banners that spelled out: LOS ANGELES CONTEMPIRE HIGH.

“You ready, kid?” asked Jeno, reaching out to ruffle Chenle’s hair. “Don’t, like, get into any trouble now, alright? Be nice to your teachers and try not to read during class. Also, make sure to eat all of your lunch. I filled up your lunch account with plenty, so don’t be afraid to buy a second portion if you’re extra hungry—”

“Alright, alright, stop. You’re embarrassing.” Chenle shied away from his hand and smoothed his hair. “I think you messed up my gel.”

Jeno almost laughed. “Who do you have to look good for?”

He stopped when he saw where Chenle was looking. There was a student nearby, atrociously tall, wearing a baseball cap, a uniform with the collar buttoned all the way up to his neck, and white ribbed socks hiked way too high. He was leaning against the school fence and trying to untangle a pair of holobuds.

“Jisung!” called Chenle, waving his hand. “Over here!”

“Do you know who that is?” Jeno asked. The stranger—Jisung—looked like a total nerd. Why would Chenle be concerned about looking his best in front of a nerd?

Jisung was making his way over. He wore a shy smile and reached up and took off his circular silver glasses—Jeno sucked in a breath at how the boy’s simple act of removing those frames transformed him from an absolute geek to an absolute catch. 

Jeno snuck a look at Chenle, who certainly hadn’t missed it either. He was smiling back, just as shyly.

“You ready?” chirped Jisung. “First day of school, huh?”

“Yeah,” blurted Chenle. “I like your hat.”

Jeno’s head whipped from Jisung to Chenle and Chenle to Jisung. Since when did Chenle have friends? 

“Oh, this?” Jisung flashed a goofy grin and pulled off his baseball cap, shaking his head. “I just wore it not to attract attention. You know, dye isn’t exactly in accordance with the dress code and stuff.”

“Wait.” Jeno squinted at the younger boy’s now-exposed mop of pale pink hair. “You . . . you? Wait. Do I know you?”

Jisung glanced at him for the first time. His eyes widened.

Jeno wanted to scream. Jisung was the pink-haired doorkeeper. Huang’s employee. _ Holy shit it’s a fucking mafia member right here at Chenle’s high school. _

Not only that, but Jisung knew all about Jeno’s visit with the mafia. Jeno’s heart raced inexplicably faster.  _ Shit. Shit. Shit. _

“Lee!” said Jisung. “Hey! How’s it going? Your transaction—”

“You know my brother?” Chenle asked, at the same time that Jeno blurted, “I’ve already bought a car thank you very much for your offer have a good day bye.”

He tried to turn away and escape, but Chenle latched onto his sweatshirt sleeve and pulled him back.

“How do you know Jisung?”

“Um. I think I recall seeing him the other day? He works for a car retail place and I was going to purchase a new holovehicle . . .” Jeno cast about in panic for a suitable conclusion to his explanation. He met Jisung’s eyes.

The younger boy must have registered his desperation, because he gave Jeno a quick nod, then snuck a look at bemused Chenle. “That’s right. Car retail.”

“How . . .” Jeno cleared his throat. “Lele, how do  _ you _ know Jisung?”

“Met him at the new student orientation,” Chenle said. “Last week. He’s a sophomore, too, and his favorite book is The Great Gatsby, like mine! We’re . . .” He paused, then continued tentatively. “I would say we’re friends.”

Jisung smiled. “I would say so too.”

Jeno goggled. The two high schoolers gazed at each other in a funny little moment of psychological union that seemed to last forever, at least for Jeno, who felt entirely like a third wheel watching the beginning of a fluffy youth romance show. 

It also kind of felt like he was watching the beginning of a ridiculously tragic romance story. He got the uncomfortable feeling that it would quickly spiral into disaster with Chenle being—well,  _ Chenle _ —and Jisung being a literal, by-the-book delinquent. 

Chenle and Jisung had started walking away into the school together. “See you later, Jeno,” called Chenle over his shoulder. 

Jeno shook himself out of his stupor. “Uh—sure! Don’t come home late! Actually, I’ll probably walk you home. Just text me when you get out of class—”

Chenle wasn’t listening, his back already turned to his brother. He was completely absorbed with what Jisung was talking about, the pink-haired boy’s hands moving animatedly. The two boys left, leaving Jeno standing there and feeling more than a little lost.

“Alright,” he said, mostly to himself. “Bye, then.”

He turned away and started on his way to his part-time job, trying to convince himself that this whole thing wasn’t a big deal. He didn’t have to worry about Chenle hanging out with a mafia worker. Jisung wasn’t even that much of a baddie, anyway, him being just a doorkeeper and all, and anyway who could wear knee-high socks and be a villain at the same time? No matter how Jeno looked at it, Jisung seemed harmless.

Everything would be okay.

At least, he hoped so.

###

Jaemin had been sitting in the parlor room for maybe fifteen minutes before the stylist showed up again, this time with the man named Ten in tow.

In his moments of alone time, Jaemin had practiced what he was going to say.  _ Howdy. I’m Jaemin. I’d like to work for you.  _ He’d wondered if he should just jump in and be forthright with it all— _ I wanna strip for your club _ —but that had seemed a little on the nose. He’d resolved to stick with his first plan, and soon after he made that decision, he’d gotten distracted by just how ornate the tearoom looked as a whole. Very elegant, and posh.

It wasn’t like Jaemin didn’t come from a high-class family himself. He was not Jeno—he was not dirt poor, and his parents were chefs, who were wealthy enough. 

It was just that his house never  _ felt _ fancy. Sure, it was. It was fancy enough that Jaemin felt embarrassed whenever he invited Jeno over, because he knew Jeno how reacted in a kind of quiet shock at exactly how many walk-in showers and ping pong tables Jaemin had. Yet, Jaemin’s house was just that: a house.

It had never felt like a home.

His parents had made sure of that.

He was so lost in thought, fingering the intricate golden threading on the velvet parlor seat, that he startled when Ten and his stylist entered the room again. In his momentary fluster Jaemin had forgotten all about his plan to come across as casual—he’d cut straight to the point.  _ My name is Na Jaemin, and I’d like to work as a stripper for your club. _

He kind of wished he didn’t. Ten’s face had morphed into one of mild horror.

“What the fuck?” The celebrity’s head whipped from Johnny to Jaemin and back again. “Wait. Johnny.”

“What?”

Ten squinted at him for a long moment. Then he grinned. “Ah. I see. A reality show cam? Come on, you should have given me some warning.”

“Ten,” said Johnny. “Um.”

Ten made his way over to Jaemin and sank into the sofa beside him. He tilted his head up prettily at the upper corners of the ceiling, as if expecting there to be hidden cameras there. “ _ Hey _ everyone, so I’m guessing today’s concept is  _ strip club workers _ ? Wow, a little  _ racy _ , don’t you think?”

Jaemin cringed at Ten’s audible italics, the celebrity’s trademark tone of voice whenever addressing cameras. “Not sure what Jeno sees in you,” he muttered under his breath.

“What was that, darling?” Ten tilted Jaemin’s chin up with his forefinger. “What was your name, again?”

Jaemin slowly leaned away from Ten’s finger. _This guy is a confident gay._ _I’ll give him that._

“Ten,” said Johnny. “This isn’t a surprise cam. I do believe the kid is honest-to-God asking to work for us.”

Ten’s eyes widened. “Excuse me? Are you accusing me of running a federally outlawed business such as private  _ stripper _ company, non-government sanctioned?”

“Cut the act, please,” Jaemin said, in his best polite voice. “I really don’t mind things being illegal.”

His own parents had never married. They’d had kids but never loved each other. Technically, in some places of the world, that was punishable by law; in some places of the world, Jaemin himself was a walking crime. 

“I’m twenty years old,” said Jaemin. “Would you be willing to hire me?

Ten glanced backward to share a look with Johnny, who in the end just shrugged, as if to say,  _ you’re the boss here, not me, remember. _

“How did you know about my . . . line of work?” Ten asked, turning back Jaemin.

“Oh. My best friend is a fanboy of yours, and he’s been telling me lately about all sorts of conspiracies that you are actually the secret leader of an underground whorehouse? My friend’s sort of an idiot, but he’d written up an entire presentation about why he thinks his conspiracy is correct, and the logic seemed solid. . . . What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Ten was giving him a sour face.

“It’s not a whorehouse,” Johnny broke in, sinking into the sofa opposite from them. “It’s just a strip club.”

“I know that,” Jaemin assured him. He’d done his research. Whorehouses meant prostitution, which Jaemin frankly wasn’t interested in, whereas strip clubs meant customers who paid to chat with hot strangers and also see them dance in skimpy clothes. “That’s just what my friend said. He’s the reason I’m here, actually.”

“Do you have any idea how the industry works, though?” Ten asked. “Most of the patrons are men. There’s no way you’d survive a night if you weren’t at least part homosexual.”

“Oh. Good sir, don’t worry about that.”

“You’re part homosexual?”

Jaemin gave him a crooked grin. “Sir, I’m fucking  _ full _ homosexual.” 

Johnny whistled. “A’ight. I say we hire him.”

“Hold up.” Ten leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. Jaemin reminded himself not to stare at the bare, tanned skin peeking out from under Ten’s suit. “I’m curious about your motivations, kid. You said you want this job because of your friend? Well, my interpretation of that is you’re hopelessly in love with your friend, but you’re inexperienced at being sexy, and you think that becoming a stripper will give you the intel on you to dance that good-good so that you can win over your friend’s heart.” Ten paused. “Is that it?”

Jaemin spluttered. “I—what do you—okay, I’m not in love with Jeno!” His face was hot. “My friend, I mean. That’s his name. Jeno.”

Ten pursed his lips. “So then why do you want to be a stripper? There’s surely other options of work.”

“I . . . I need the money.”  _ Jeno needs the money.  _ Jaemin wasn’t sure how to explain that his best friend had nearly sold his life’s savings for the sake of revenge and that Jaemin wanted an easy overnight job (which was rumored to pay handsomely) to help Jeno work his way out of debt.

Not that Jeno could ever know he was doing this for him. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how much Jeno would hate that.

“I’m not in love with Jeno though,” he added, for good measure. “Best friends do these things for each other.”

“Oh, so you’re an oblivious gay.” Ten cast a dark look in Johnny’s direction. “Wouldn’t be the first I’ve met.”

Johnny blinked. “Huh?”

Ten rolled his eyes. “Anyway. This Jeno has gotta be a pretty dedicated fan of mine, to have pieced together my involvement in the sexual entertainment industry. I’d like to meet him sometime.” He yawned, cracked his back. His voice shifted into a business tone. “Give my assistant here your email and phone number, he’ll send you the details of where tonight’s club is going to be held. Or you can start tomorrow, doesn’t matter. Location changes every night so you’ll have to keep your notifs on for updates on where to go. Remember to bring money for the entrance fee, and don’t expect things to go well on your first night on the job, because most employees don’t pick up steam for at least a week or three. Got that?”

All of this was information that Jaemin already knew. “Got it.”

“Alright. I’m gonna turn in.” Ten got up and turned to leave the room. “I’m pooped from the photoshoot.”

“It’s nine am, though?” Jaemin said, with a bemused smile.

“Yeah, and the photoshoot was an overnight one. I’ve been up since four pm.” Ten shrugged. Soon after, he disappeared out the door. 

Johnny sighed. “Yeah, at this point, he and I are practically nocturnal.” He fished around in his handbag and thrust a sheet of paper out at Jaemin. “Here, fill this form out for me, would you? Contact information, all that stuff.”

“Alright.” Jaemin gingerly took the paper. “Thanks. I think I’ll be ready to work starting tomorrow night.”

“Great.” Johnny smiled. “I’m sure you’ll do great. You’ll see, stripping is pretty pedestrian, once you get used to the idea.”

“Pretty pedestrian,” Jaemin mumbled, filling out the boxes on the form.

After he was done, he set the pen down.

“All finished?” Johnny took the paper back from him. “Cool.”

Jaemin fixed Johnny with a probing look. “I have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Pardon my intrusion, but are you and Ten . . . ?”

Johnny tilted his head. “Me and Ten what?”

_ My gaydar is never wrong.  _ “Dating. Are you two dating? Just interested. Purely pedestrian knowledge.”  _ Jeno would be devastated if he knew his celebrity crush was taken,  _ he thought, with no small amount of satisfaction.

“I . . .” Johnny scratched his head. “Ten and  _ me _ ? Huh? Where would you even get that notion?”

Jaemin sighed. “I’m guessing that’s a no.” He passed the paper back to him and stood up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Thank you very much for your time. Have a good day. Or, er, night. Because you’re nocturnal.”

He left. Johnny waved him good-bye.

###

Jeno spent his morning at his cafe barista part-time gulping down Redbull to keep himself from falling asleep. There weren’t many customers today. He polished latte mugs until his fingertips hurt from chafing against the pseudoplastic cloth.

_ White hands, whiter eyeballs, a hoarse voice like burnt glass _ . . .

Jeno quickly hung the latte mug back onto the rack and braced his arms against the cafe counter, willing himself to breathe. Just breathe.

“Kid, you okay?”

It was his coworker, an orange-haired woman named Rose, peering at him with a concerned look.

“Yeah,” Jeno managed. He bowed his head to keep his face out of sight.  _ Cameras, delusions, haunted faces, fatigue fatigue fatigue _ —

“You sure? Because you don’t look—”

Jeno muffled a groan, whipped off his glasses, and slammed his forehead down onto the countertop. The force rattled all of the mugs in the cup rack. Rose was stunned silent.

The only sound in the cafe was Jeno’s heavy breathing.

Rose inconspicuously sidled away, obviously not wanting to be caught up with whatever angst Jeno was dealing with. He groaned, put his glasses back on, lifted his head from the countertop, and went back to polishing cups.

As soon as his shift was over, Jeno sprinted the whole way to his apartment complex and was so out of breath that he couldn’t bring himself to take the staircase even though his room was only on the second floor. He spent the entire elevator ride wringing his hands and trying to steady his own heartbeat. 

Once he got into his apartment, he unlocked the door and shut it behind him. 

Then he turned around and saw there was someone sitting on his dining table and nearly shrieked.

“Hello,” said Jisung brightly, swinging his legs. “I’m here as a follow-up from your visit with the boss—”

“You!” Jeno thrust a finger at him. “What are you—how did you—why—” He shook his head. “Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“Ah, yeah, nah,” said Jisung. “I’m on a free period. This is when I get all of the boss’s errands done.” He shrugged, cheerfully lifting one of his shoulders. “Anyway. Good news! Your transaction has been completed.”

Jeno blinked.

“Oh,” he said.

He became aware of a new emotion spreading up through his toes and fingertips. He suddenly felt airy all over, as if an enormous weight had been lifted off his back. 

The transaction was  _ done _ . The revenge was completed.

“. . . and the boss says to check your email for the proof and stuff,” Jisung was saying. “But the email will self-destruct after you watch it, as a security measure. You know?”

Jeno barely heard him.  _ It’s been done.  _ He couldn’t wait to tell Jaemin. This whole mafia business was over—did this mean he could finally get a good night’s sleep? Did this mean he might have a chance at . . . moving on from it all?

Jisung was in the middle of reciting the payment that Jeno owed Huang. He finished the immensely long number off with, “So would you like to process the payment as cash or credit?” 

Jeno took a deep breath. “Uh . . cash. Here, let me get it out of the safe.”

He left to get the money, which really wasn’t in a safe but stowed in the cabinet underneath the bathroom sink. He spent a minute rooting past containers of shaving cream and Chenle’s fruity toothpaste bottles before he unearthed the money, which he’d prepared into inconspicuous disposable grocery bags. A decent portion of the money was in coins—spare change from tip money that Jeno had been storing in his piggy bank for years.

He went back to the main room and placed the heavy bags of money down onto the sofa. “Here we are.”

He looked around for Jisung but he was nowhere to be seen. Jeno frowned and moved to the kitchen, then almost tripped over the younger male, who was crouching and hunched over next to the miniature refrigerator.

“What the—” Jeno stumbled to keep his balance. “What are you doing there?”

Jisung glanced up at him. His baseball cap shaded his eyes from Jeno’s view and Jeno was struck with the sudden ominous energy emanating from him. 

“What’s wrong?”

When Jisung didn’t answer, Jeno noticed how Jisung’s fist was curled around something. “What’s that you’re holding?”

Slowly without breaking eye contact, Jisung lifted up his hand and uncurled his fist to show Jeno what he was carrying.

The rose. The one he’d taken from Huang’s garden. 

Jeno inhaled and snatched the flower out of Jisung’s hand. “Oh no. You disconnected it from the stem?” He rushed over to the cup of water that Jaemin had placed the rose into a week ago—the stem of the rose sat forlornly in the cup. “Is there any way to reattach it?”

Jisung rose to his feet. “Lee, I have something to tell you.”

“What?” Jeno was trying to push the flower back onto the stem. “Ugh, it’s not working. Jaemin is going to kill me.”

“Lee,” Jisung said, louder now. “Lee.”

“Why would you do this?” Jeno said, rounding on him. “You must know how hard real flowers are to come by. Why would you—”

“ _ Lee.  _ You took that from our garden.”

Jeno faltered. “Uh.”

“Didn’t you?”

“So what if I did?” Jeno said. “You guys had so many of them.”

Jisung’s mouth tightened. He made his way over and pried the flower out of Jeno’s grip, lifting it to both of their eye levels. Jeno could see dewdrops glistening on the rose’s shriveled petals— _ strange,  _ he thought.  _ Shouldn’t the dew have dried up by now? _

Then he squinted.  _ Wait . . . _

Wordlessly Jisung plucked one of the petals from the flower. As it came off, there was a tiny tinkling noise—something had fallen onto the ground

Jeno stooped to find out what it was. He patted the ground with both hands, searching for something small. Were dewdrops solid? He’d never heard of dewdrops being solid . . .

His fingertip hit something hard and small. He rolled it into his palm and stood up to examine it.

It was clear, and tiny, its surface cut into infinitesimal facets.

He prodded at the bead. “What. . .”

Jisung thrust his hand out. His palm glittered with dozens of the beads.

“Diamonds,” Jisung whispered. “You stole a diamond-bearing rose from the mafia boss’s garden.” He let out a long breath. “I’m sorry, Lee, but you’re in deep trouble.”

###

Jeno stared at the other boy, his face heating in disbelief. “S—Stole? No! Since when does picking a pretty plant merit an accusation of theft?”

“It does, if the pretty plant is one that grows literal money and brings the boss thousands of profits per month.” Jisung passed a hand over his face. “Are you telling me you didn’t  _ know _ what it was? You mean to say it was an accident?”

“It was an accident.” Jeno grabbed the rose blossom and peered at the miniature jewels encrusting the petals like pollen. “How—What? Is this the equivalent of a money tree? How did you guys manage to engineer—”

“It’s the direct equivalent to a money tree,” Jisung interrupted. “The boss invested two and a half years hiring top-of-the-tier scientists around the globe to engineer this species of rose for him. Just one of the blossoms produces a small fortune every month.” He gave Jeno something akin to a glare. “Only if the flower is  _ functioning _ , though. That means,  _ attached to its roots. _ ”

Jeno’s brow furrowed.

He had an inkling of where this was going, and he could already tell it was bad news.

“Well, it was you who broke it off the stem,” he tried to say. “I didn’t have anything to do with that. If Huang wants compensation, it’s you who he’ll be looking for—”

“The roots, Lee, I said the roots.”

“I don’t know what those are.”

“They’re—ugh, they’re the things that connect the flower into the ground so that it can grow. If you pick the flower, you disconnect it from its roots and you kill it.”

“I—” Jeno grasped for something to say. “I didn’t know that.”

“If you kill a money flower, it doesn’t grow back, Lee.” Jisung was growing more and more agitated, fixing his baseball cap anxiously. “You’ve damaged one of the boss’s investments. You’ve robbed him of that rose’s profits which it otherwise would have produced in the lifetime it was supposed to have. Do you understand what you’ve done?”

“What did I do?” Jeno’s voice was small. “I mean, how can I fix it?”

“You can’t!” Jisung looked at him with pained eyes. “I’m sorry, Lee. I’m going to have to take you to see the boss. Right now. Please follow me.”

He strode past Jeno, grabbing the grocery bags of cash and heading toward the door.

“Wait, wait, wait.” Jeno chased after him. “What if I don’t want to?”

“If you don’t go,” Jisung said, pausing at the door, “well. You need to go. I don’t want anything bad to happen to Chenle.”

“Chenle? Oh,  _ don’t  _ you  _ fucking dare  _ bring my little brother into this shit—”

“I don’t want to!” Jisung looked as if he might die of exasperation. “That’s why you need to come with me. So you and the boss can settle this, without bloodshed.”

Jeno shook his head violently. “No bloodshed. No seeing the boss. Look, I’m sorry about your flower, okay? Can’t you just take your payment and leave? Who says the boss has to know anything about the rose?”

“If he hasn’t figured it out already, he will soon,” said Jisung. “The gardeners report to him every other day about the state of the garden, and they’ll be sure to notice if there’s a rose missing.”

Without another word, he slipped out of the house. Jeno stared after him, torn, then ran to shove the rose into his jacket pocket before chasing after the younger boy and desperately wishing he wasn’t about to go meet his doom.

###

_ If Chenle was Jeno’s moon, Mark was Jeno’s sun. _

_ Jeno was somewhere in between the two of them, caught between the gravity of being an older brother and the gravity of being a younger one. In another life, he might have hated it; in another life, he might have driven himself crazy with longing for parents who’d died before he ever got to remember them. _

_ But Mark had always made sure that that life was not this one. _

_ Mark had always made sure Jeno was okay. _

_ He, Jeno, and Chenle had always orbited around and around and around each other in gentle, lazy circles that spoke only of forever and forever and forever. The three of them, hurtling through a cold, uncaring universe, were enough. _

_ What would happen to a planet if it lost its sun? _

_ What would happen if a forever ended? _

_ (Things like that happened more often than you would have thought.) _

###

Half an hour later, Jeno found himself sitting in a chair in the mafia boss’s lobby and nervously bouncing his left heel against the bloodblue carpet.

As soon as they’d arrived at the mansion, Jisung darted up the stairs, calling to Jeno over his shoulder that he’d be back and with the boss in tow. Jeno had been left alone in the lobby. Ten minutes passed and there was still no sign of Jisung returning.

With a strangled sigh, Jeno heaved himself to his feet and started pacing, careful to get off the carpet for fear of leaving shoe prints. The star-shaped tiles under his feet created a mural that, him having seen it in its entirety from an overhead view, was now easy to grasp.  _ Why a Moomin? _ he paused to wonder, walking circles around the cartoon character’s eyeball.  _ How do I know what a Moomin is? _

His holo-phone vibrated and he dug it out of his pocket. The contact name was nothing more than a dolphin emoji.

He picked up the call. “Is school over already?”

“Thank God it is,” whined Chenle. “God, last period was so boring. I was supposed to be in the same class as Jisung—he didn’t show up for some reason? I dunno. When are you going to pick me up?”

“I’m—I’m busy right now. Sorry. Can you wait for maybe an hour? Or . . . two?”

“ _ Two _ ?” Chenle’s voice was high enough that Jeno had to hold the phone away from his ear. “Are you kidding me? It’s hot out here and the library’s closed!”

“Lee?” Jisung appeared on the staircase, hurrying down. “The boss is coming.”

“Shit,” Jeno breathed. He raised his voice. “Okay, Lele, sorry but I have to go. Call Jaemin to pick you up, alright? I love you, please be safe, don’t go anywhere without your holo-phone on, dial the police if anyone shady comes after you—”

“What? Why would anyone come after me?”

“No reason! No reason!” Jeno cast a look upward. He could see the faint shadow of a figure descending the many flights of stairs.  _ Huang.  _ “Don’t worry about it. Jaemin will pick you up.”

Chenle groaned. “Jaemin isn’t picking up his phone either, though.”

“ _ Love you stay safe bye. _ ” Jeno disconnected the call and shoved his phone in his pocket, his heart racing as the mafia boss approached.

Today, Renjun was wearing an identical outfit to when Jeno had last seen him. A black turtleneck and black slacks, with a long golden necklace that tapered into a round pendant. Atop his lavender-blue hair sat a fashionably crooked beret. His face wore a mild, pleasant expression. 

Following close behind Renjun was another man, dressed very similarly to Renjun except with his hair dyed a dirty caramel. He and Renjun murmured back and forth as they descended the stairs, until they reached the bottom and Renjun laid eyes on Jeno. He held up his hand—the caramel-haired man quieted.

“Hello,” Jeno said.

“Nice to see you again, sir,” Renjun said. “This here is one of my employees. Dejun, say hi.”

Dejun inclined his head in a small bow. Jeno fluttered his hand upward in an awkward wave.

“Shall I search him?” Dejun asked Renjun in a quiet voice. 

Renjun pursed his lips. “I doubt he’s carrying anything. You’re not carrying anything, are you, Lee?”

_ Yes, a multi-billion dollar rose.  _ “You mean, like, weapons? No.” 

“Yeah, I thought so,” Renjun said. “Sorry, Dejun, let’s set aside the protocol for this one.” He gave Lee a small smile—his teeth were very white. “First matters first. You—”

“I’m sorry!” Jeno blurted. “I knew I shouldn’t have taken the rose. I mean, no, I  _ didn’t  _ know, or else I never would have taken it. But I know now and I’m sorry and I didn’t mean to cause trouble for you so please don’t harm me or my family—”

Renjun silenced him with a raised eyebrow. “I wasn’t going to talk about that, sir.”

Jeno’s face went hot. “Oh. I see.” He cleared his throat. “Carry on.”

“First matters first,” Renjun continued, “your payment has just been processed. Have you checked your email? I dispatched a few of my men, including Dejun here—he’s very talented, I’ll tell you—and they had your request completed at around 4 am this morning. Joo Geum is currently deceased and the torture lasted precisely thirty minutes. I apologize for being unable to treat her with sleep deprivation the way she treated your brother, but I expect you understand it would have been an affair too lengthy to account for. I hope you approve of our alternative methods.”

“Right,” Jeno said. His lips felt dry. He snuck a glance at the caramel-haired employee beside Renjun and suppressed the sudden realization that Dejun, who seemed so outwardly demure, was probably a practiced torturer. “I haven’t checked my email yet . . . I’ll be sure to do that when I get home.”

“That brings me to my second matter. Lee, you won’t be going home today. Not as the same person you were before.”

Jeno wondered if he’d misheard him. “Um.”

Renjun straightened his sleeves and regarded Jeno with a piercing look. “Park, my door keeper, tells me you committed theft. From me, no less. Is this true?”

Jeno tried his best not to fidget as he pulled the rose blossom from his pocket. A few tiny diamonds spilled between his fingers and bounced to the ground, making small clinking noises and rolling to a stop by Jeno’s feet.

“About that,” said Jeno. “I . . . didn’t mean to?”

Renjun sighed and pinched his nose bridge. “So it’s true.” He lifted his head and gave Jeno a small, patronizing smile. “Why the fuck would you think that was a good idea.”

Jeno bit the inside of his lip. Renjun had been nothing but cordial to him but that had just changed. Jaemin’s voice rang in Jeno’s mind:  _ You don’t know what he’s capable of. He’s the closest thing to a villain this contempire has ever seen. _

“Pardon my drop of honorifics,” said Renjun. “I don’t think I can call you sir anymore, Lee. You’re not my client anymore, you see.”

“Boss,” said Jisung from beside them. “You’re speaking English. There’s no honorifics in English.”

“I know that, door keeper.” Renjun turned his gaze on Jisung. “Why don’t you go back to standing by the door?”

Jeno blinked at the animosity in Renjun’s tone. Jisung exhaled and bowed his head, then went to go stand by the entrance of the mansion, his hands clasped behind his back.

Renjun turned back to Jeno. “Sorry. My door keeper has a bit of a problem with speaking his mind. He and I have a history; don’t mind him.”

“I see.”

“Anyway . . . Do you know what an indentured servant is, Lee?”

“I don’t think so. . . ?”

“Basically, it is akin to slavery. Do you know what a slave is?” 

Jeno bit his lip. “Of course I do. What are you getting at?”

Renjun reached forward and took the rose from Jeno’s hand. “I have many colleagues in my line of work,” he said. “Some of them are more like adversaries than colleagues. There’s a rival mafia group to mine, led by a man more jaded than even myself—in the case that had you stolen something as valuable as this flower from that group, you would most certainly be sentenced to slavery for that leader.”

Jeno swallowed. “What are—um, what are  _ your _ outlooks on slavery?” 

“I don’t fancy having my own personal slave,” Renjun admitted. “I’d rather settle this cleanly.” He lifted up the rose. “My first instinct is to ask for monetary compensation for your destruction of my property, in which situation, once you forked over the money, you’d be on your merry way.”

“How much is monetary compensation?” Jeno ventured to ask.

Renjun told him.

Jeno nearly fainted. “Okay, uh. No. I’m sorry. That’s—I can’t  _ do _ that—”

“Right. I’ve looked into your socioeconomic status, and it’s quite apparent you don’t have that sort of money at your disposal. The only way you could ever offer me compensation is becoming my employee. ” Renjun gave him an apologetic smirk. “Seems like you’re going to have to work for me for life.”

There was silence in the lobby.

“Yes,” Renjun continued, taking Jeno’s shock in stride. “I’ll provide you enough wages to make a living, of course, just like any ordinary job. Don’t worry. It’ll be quite normal.”

Jeno shut his eyes briefly.  _ Work for the mafia. Become a criminal. _ “You’re kidding,” he whispered.

Renjun shrugged. “I’m not. You’ll find I rarely make jokes. Let’s outline the job description for you, shall we?”

Once Jeno got over how absolutely ludicrous it was for him to even consider living a life entrenched in the crime industry, the job seemed almost practical. Renjun went over the hours (9 to 5), the obligations (loyalty to Renjun’s mafia group, no leaking of information), the perks (free insurance, plus something called a “white card” that would do wonders for lubricating his relationship with the police), and the wage (which was actually higher than the pay he earned at the cafe). 

“I’ve been missing a quality secretary for quite some time now, and I think you’d fit that role nicely,” Renjun mused. “There’s also the post of lieutenant, which has been recently vacated.” He cast a vague glance backward at Jisung. “But that’s a messy job. Don’t think you’d be up for that. You’d be more comfortable sticking with paperwork and not field work, hmm?”

“Right,” said Jeno, wondering if he was missing something.

“Okay and also, you’re going to have to change your hair, Lee. Us criminals cannot go around looking like puppy boyfriends.” Renjun laughed a little.

Jeno’s brow twitched at the sound of Renjun’s laugh.  _ Cashmere berets, gleaming wind chimes, sweatbands with initials embroidered in a clumsy middle schooler boy’s sewing hand, paintbrushes sticky with berry juice, Sunday sunshine, irreversible grief _ —

He shook himself out of the reverie. Why was he being so spacey? Where were these images coming from?

“. . . Although I appreciate the aesthetic,” Renjun was saying, still on the subject of Jeno’s hair. “It’s cute.”

Jeno’s cheeks flushed, already forgetting about the episode of oddities that’d just attacked him. “I’m not—that isn’t—puppy boyfriend? What? What color should I change it to?”

“Your choice. I make all my important employees dye their hair. It’s sort of my trademark.” He gestured at Dejun, who was still standing there, stoic as a statue. “Maybe you should consider going blond like this one.”

Jeno blinked at Dejun, who pulled his lips back in some semblance of a smile. He obviously didn’t have much practice exercising his smiling muscles.

“Yeah, okay,” said Jeno. “I mean, yes, I’ll get my hair changed.”

Renjun gave him an encouraging smile. “So does this mean you’ve accepted my job offer?”

Jeno licked his dry lips. He got the feeling that he didn’t really have a choice in accepting this job. There was no saying no to Renjun, someone who had the potential to mangle his entire life. 

“It’s better than being a slave,” he finally managed to say. 

“That’s the spirit,” Renjun applauded him. “You’ll start first thing tomorrow. Park, please show this kind sir out.”

Jisung obediently came toward them and led Jeno out the door. As they left, Jeno glanced back to see Dejun and Renjun climbing the staircase again, their backs already turned to him. 

“I’ll call a cab to take you back to your apartment,” said Jisung. “Tomorrow I’ll take you to the storage room to get your white card, because you’ll be needing that.”

It was windy outside. The breeze stirred Jisung’s pink hair, back and forth—Jeno could see the other boy’s split ends and stiff strands, evidence that he’d been dying his hair regularly, and for a long time. Maybe even years. 

_ I make all of my important employees dye their hair,  _ Renjun had said.

Jeno frowned. “Jisung . . . Is a door keeper considered an important employee position?”

Jisung looked at him quickly. “I . . . Of course. Why would you ask that?”

“How long have you worked for the mafia?” 

“Three years now.”

“As a door keeper?”

Jisung walked down the path, past bejewelled roses and lawns trimmed at 1.5 inches. Jeno hurried to catch up.

“No,” Jisung finally said. “I wasn’t always just a door keeper.”

He didn’t say anything more. When they exited the garden, there was a cab waiting for Jeno, and he climbed inside and thanked Jisung for covering the fare. As he rode back home, he couldn’t help but wonder—by getting this job, what exactly was he getting himself into? 

_ Well,  _ Jeno thought grimly.  _ I guess I’ll just have to find out. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Ten's red suit outfit is ofc from Baby Don't Stop Era. Also, Renjun's outfit in this chapter is highly reminiscent of his attire in the NCT Dream "Boom" MV. There was a rose in the MV the same way there's a rose in this fic. Lolol I guess I'm not telling y'all to stream Boom but maybe I am?? >:3 
> 
> Btw I know none of the 127 members have made much of an appearance in this fic (yet) (hehe), but ofc I'm a huge 127zen and I just wanted to remind everyone to stream Neozone because it dropped two days ago and I already love that album with all my heart oh my God.
> 
> If you liked this chapter, please let me know! 
> 
> Remember to stay safe, wash your hands well, get sleep, eat protein <3
> 
> ~ Yerin, 030620


	3. Chapter 3

An amber-eyed boy wearing a lip ring and a black scarf lounged on a veranda in New Gangnam, sipping oolong tea and scrolling through his phone. The sky above him was a messy gray. He glanced up from his phone long enough to frown at the dreary clouds—after a moment of studying them from behind his shades, he sighed, reached over into his porch cabinet, pulled out a small bottle of perfume.

He spritzed a couple puffs of the perfume around him, causing the nearby air to turn a faint shade of an unearthly blue. Colored fragrances had recently entered the market, and the boy was finding them absolutely delightful. Donghyuck hated cloudy skies, and spraying a little blue into the air made it at least temporarily seem more like summer. 

He settled back into his seat and kept scrolling on his phone, checking for new notifications. A new selfie from Ten, wearing a red suit with no shirt underneath. An update from his boss, Irene, asking him when he’d be done with his vacation. Finally, a missed call, with an Unknown Caller ID.

He frowned, set down his tea, and pressed his fingerprint into a special identification niche in his phone. Immediately, the phone ballooned into a 3-D hologram of thousands of geometric shapes illuminated in pixelated light around him, baring to him the inner networking system. With a few waves of his gloved hands, he hunted through the hologram, casting aside cubes and trapezoidal prisms until he finally found what he was looking for: the hidden code for the No Caller ID.

He chewed his lip as he scanned through the code. Then, in one decisive motion, he reached up and pressed his finger into the pixels.

The phone beeped in obedience and began to call the number. He picked his tea back up and was about to lean back again when he noticed his neighbor on the veranda adjacent to his—she was an elderly lady, in the middle of hanging up some laundry as she stared in perplexion at the geometric holograms that shimmered in a sort of wonderland around him.

He grinned. “Pretty cool, right? It’s not called a holo-phone for nothing.”

The old lady nodded, her eyes flicking to his lip ring. She cleared her throat. Her voice was pruny. “Kids shouldn’t desecrate their bodies with piercings, you know.”

His eyes narrowed. “I haven’t been a kid since I was eight. And, I’ll have as many piercings as I like.”

She pursed her lips at his sharp tone and receded back into her room. 

“Old Asian ladies,” he muttered, turning back to his phone and extinguishing the holograms with a wave of his hand. “Always so nosy.”

“Donghyuck,” said the voice through the phone. “You’re practically the youthful male equivalent of an old Asian lady.”

Donghyuck’s face split into a grin. 

“Jeno! And what? No, I’m not  _ anything _ like those geezers. How have you been? Why the call?”

A bubbly laugh resonated through the phone. It was a sound Donghyuck would know anywhere. “I’ve been okay. I mean, as okay as I can be. What about you? Having a nice vacation?”

“Yeah, but I think I’ll get Kang to move my flight up.” He stirred his tea. “I’m getting kind of bored here.”

“Donghyuck, you’re bored everywhere you go.”

“Not everywhere,” Donghyuck said.

The words came out before he could stop himself.

Jeno didn’t respond. Silence snaked between them. Donghyuck scratched the back of his neck and wished he’d been better about his choice of words—but it wasn’t like he hadn’t been telling the truth. He and Jeno both knew that there had once existed a place where Donghyuck had never felt bored for a single moment. A place where he had felt like he belonged.

_ With Mark. _

That place was gone now.

Donghyuck broke the silence first, deciding to make things direct. He’d never been one for subtlety anyway. “I drink tea a lot lately, like I am right now, because it helps me calm down. Especially when I’m stressed.” He exhaled. Shut his eyes briefly. “It reminds me of him.”

“Yeah.” Jeno’s voice was a whisper. 

“Yeah.”

“He and you always drank tea when you came over. I remember now.”

More silence. 

Donghyuck cleared his throat. “Anyway. How’s Jaemin? Still baking? God, I wish there was a way he could send me some crepes without them going bad during the shipment delivery time. I miss his crepes.”

“Hang on, he’s here with me. Let me pass you the phone.”

Donghyuck waited. After a moment, Jaemin’s sonorous voice filled the speaker. “Hyuck! Bitch, it’s me! I’ve missed you so much. When are you coming back?”

“We saw each other like a month ago,” Donghyuck laughed. Then he sobered up and lowered his voice. “Okay Nana, you better be taking good care of Nono and Lele. I’d hate for them to lash out in their grief and do anything rash.”

Jaemin laughed back. The sound was high-pitched and weak. 

Donghyuck’s smile fell. “Oh no.”

“Yeah. About . . . that. Rash things.”

“Jaemin, spill.” 

“Do you . . . uh, do you know Huang Renjun?”

“Do I  _ know _ Huang Renjun?” Donghyuck snorted. “The bastard who last month smuggled eight million tons of synthetic drugs into the New American capital right under the nose of the federal government?”

“Uh.”

“The same one who did it by packing the drugs into Instant-Ramen bags and telling the customs officers that the smell was just MSG?”

“What? No way.”

“Yeah, him, that same bastard who seduced the leader of the Crawlers into representing him in the Supreme Court so he’d escape a two-decade prison sentence for tax evasion and extortion?”

Jaemin’s frown was audible. “Crawlers?”

Donghyuck sighed. “Contraction slang. For the criminal lawyers. You know, the trio of slimy weasels? Who meddle with the law to let convicts walk free. Wong, Qian, Kim . . . Well, whatever, Huang is in cahoots with literally every bad thing on this planet and he’s more notorious than my morning breath—I don’t recommend getting near that man with an eight foot pole.”

“Well,  _ you _ kill people for a living. You can’t call him more notorious than yourself.”

“Huang kills people too! Although his prices aren’t as nice as mine. My services are financially friendly.”

“Yeah—so—” Jaemin paused, struggling to find words. “Okay I’m just gonna say it.”

“The tea? Alright, spill, please spill.”

“Stop calling it  _ tea _ , this is  _ serious _ , this is the whole reason why we  _ called  _ you.”

“Stop talking in italics, I can sense the tea getting cold.”

Jaemin’s words came out in a jumbled rush. “Jeno hired Huang to kill Mark’s killer and after that Huang hired Jeno to be his secretary and apparently it’s a lifetime contract so yeah.”

Donghyuck smile faded.

“. . . What?”

Jaemin’s voice was small. “I’m not going to say it again.”

Jeno’s voice wafted from somewhere on the other line. “Nana, are you done? Has Donghyuck agreed to send you crepes? Hang on, I’m almost done helping Lele with his homework, I’ll be right there to get the phone—Donghyuck, if you can hear me, don’t hang up!”

“I hear you!” called Donghyuck, then lowered his voice to a harsh whisper. “Jaemin, what the fuck? What the  _ fuck _ . Jeno, that loser with the glasses and puppy eyes—he did  _ what _ ?”

“Okay first, Jeno’s not a loser. And second, you can’t convince him to stop. The deal’s already sealed. He’s serving Huang until he pays off the debt he owes him . . . Yeah. It’s a long story.”

“No, no, no.” Donghyuck reached up to clutch the side of his own head. “No, I don’t care about the secretary thing. What did you say? The other thing? Jeno . . . Jeno got someone to kill Joo Geum?”

“I know. I know, I know.” The tone in Jaemin’s voice sounded like he’d gone through this train of thought in his own head too many times to count. “I know it wasn’t a healthy decision. But Jeno hardly ever sleeps anymore, and I’m really worried about him, and I thought who cares if that bitchass psycho dies if it makes Jeno feel _better_? She deserved to die, I should have gone after her myself, and—wait.” Jaemin stopped. “Wait, you’re the one who’s the assassin. Why didn’t you—”

“Because she was the  _ MVP _ of the Serial Killer Society,” Donghyuck hissed. “Because—shit.  _ Shit _ .” He was scrambling out of his seat. “I’m booking a flight. Right now.”

“What?” Jaemin spluttered. “To where?”

“To you guys. Oh my God _.  _ Why didn’t you come to me earlier about this? Jaemin, you’re not safe. Take Jeno and Chenle and get out of that apartment right now.”

“I . . . What?” Jaemin sounded lost. “What’s the Serial Killer Society?”

“What does it _sound_ _like_?” Donghyuck stumbled into his bedroom and began throwing his stuff into his suitcase. 

“Hey, Donghyuck.” It was Jeno now, taking the phone back. “What’s wrong? What did Jaemin tell you?”

“Everything. He told me everything. Jeno, I hate to say it like this, but you’re  _ fucked _ . Go stay with Huang. Beg on his doorstep for a free bedroom if you have to. Even if he doesn’t actively protect you, the SKS won’t immediately think about looking for you there.” Donghyuck raced into his restroom and used his arm to swipe all of the toiletries and open cosmetic containers from the bathroom counter into his suitcase. Several tubes of his eyeliner came uncapped but he didn’t notice. “Are you listening to me? Jen, if you’ve ever cared about yourself or Chenle, you need to listen to me.”

“Donghyuck, I. . .” Jeno’s voice broke. “What?”

“Go.  _ Go!  _ I’ll take the first flight back to LA. Get your ass over to Huang’s place right fucking now. I love you. I’m coming. I’m hanging up. Bye.” Donghyuck disconnected the call, cast one last look around the dorm room to check if he’d left anything, and tore out of his hotel room down to the lobby. 

He dialed another number. 

“Haechan?” It was a smug, sultry voice, unmistakably the leader of the assassin’s guild. “I thought you were going to keep ghosting me for the duration of your vacation. What’s going on? How’s South Korea?”

“Hi,” he panted. “Irene. Look, can you book me a flight? I’m coming back.”

She clucked her tongue. “Doll, you should have called Seulgi for that.”

“But if  _ you _ book it for me, they won’t deny me a seat for being a last-minute add-on. You’re literally Irene, no one doesn’t know who you are.”

“That’s true.” She paused. “What’s going on, Haechan? Is there anything I should know?”

“No time. Please, boss, do this favor for me. I’ll work overtime for the next six weeks. No. Eight weeks. Please.”

“Geez. Geez. Okay.” She sniffed in barely concealed disdain at the neediness in his tone, and hung up the call soon after.

Donghyuck couldn’t blame her. As he checked out of his hotel room and darted out into the street to flag a taxi, he couldn’t help but inwardly remark on just how far this had gone. 

_ Lee Jeno, _ he thought, on his way to the airport with his suitcase on his lap and both his feet bouncing against the taxi floor mats.  _ What have you done? _

###

On the other side of the world, Jaemin and Jeno sat stunned.

They were together in pajamas on the sofa of Jeno’s apartment, stunned into silence at the holo-phone that sat beeping discordantly between them as evidence of the phone call.

Donghyuck’s words echoed in Jeno’s mind.  _ If you’ve ever cared about yourself or Chenle, you need to listen to me. _

“Do you think he was being serious?” Jaemin said.

“Um,” Jeno said, his voice thick with uncertainty. “Huang never told me about Joo Geum being involved with any serial . . . stuff.”

“Cereal?” Chenle said, plopping down beside them. “We’re out of cereal.”

Neither of the older boys answered him, too lost in their own thoughts.

“Um . . . hello?” Chenle knocked on Jeno’s kneecap to get his attention.

The result was a booming rapping noise that definitely had not come from Chenle’s knuckles. Jeno and Jaemin raised their heads simultaneously.

The knocking on the apartment door persisted, politely.

Chenle sighed and got up. “Fine, I’ll answer it.”

“Don’t!”

Chenle turned back to give Jaemin a quizzical look.

The knocking grew. Jeno’s mouth felt dry.

Chenle’s gaze shifted to something behind Jeno and his eyes grew comically huge.

Jeno whipped around. His heart stopped.

A man was staring at them through the window.

Chenle’s ear-piercing shriek curdled the air. The man’s eyes were wide, unblinking, shot through with eerie, reddish veins, locked onto Jeno and Jaemin. Slowly a small smile split his face, exposing two buck teeth as if he were a large, humanoid rat.

“There you are.” He was loud enough to be audible through the windowpane. Without breaking eye contact with Jeno, he leaned his forehead against the glass, his tongue flicking out to lick his teeth in an odd jerking motion. “Here you are.”

As he said this, the banging on the door, which had been reaching a crescendo this whole time, came to an abrupt halt.

A moment later, a woman joined the man in front of Jeno’s window, her eyes redder than his and her braces-laden smile larger still.

“Run,” Jeno said, his voice low. “Run.”

But they were all mutually pinned in place.

The smiling woman raised her arm. In her hand was a gun.

Chenle screamed again. Jeno tackled him, knocking both of them to the floor just as a gunshot cracked through the air and the windowpane shattered with deafening discord. 

Then Jeno was scrambling to his feet, pulling his brother with him toward the door. Jaemin was right behind him. There was the grit of boots crunching on glass shards, and then an eerily lucid voice as one of the intruders called out, “Aww, look, they’re trying to run.”

Jeno scrabbled at the doorknob. It was jammed.

He cursed, jiggled it harder. Another gunshot went off. Jaemin grabbed the back of Jeno and Chenle’s shirts and yanked them both to the ground. Jeno looked up and saw steam curling off the bullet hole that’d blown clean through the door right where his head had been a split second earlier.

Jeno suddenly couldn’t breathe. Panic, panic, panic panic panic panic  _ panic panic panic _ —

The kitchen island was a pace away. An unwashed frying pan that Jeno had used to cook an omelet that morning sat innocuously on the counter surface—in one swift movement, Chenle seized it, turned, and flung it at the intruders.

Rat Man ducked, but Braces Lady casually plucked the frying pan  _ out of the air  _ and brought it down to inspect it. Then she looked back up at shocked Chenle, and gave him an indulgent smile. 

A split second and then there was a crack and Chenle made a strangled noise and stumbled back into Jaemin. Jeno saw red.  _ Shit shit shit _ —

“But I want to do it,” Rat Man shrilled. 

“No, I want to!” Braces Lady whined back. Her gun clicked as she reloaded.

“Let’s do rock paper scissors,” insisted Rat.

“Fuck off, you know I’ve always liked killing kids—”

“ _ PUSH _ ,” Jaemin rasped into Jeno’s ear, and Jeno rammed his shoulder against the door with every muscle in his body. The door heaved open with a great crash as the chair that’d been barricaded underneath the knob toppled onto its side. Jeno, Jaemin, and Chenle burst into the hallway—Chenle made another strangled noise and Jeno looked back to see him on the ground, clutching his left bicep with shaking fingers.

Gunshots exploded behind them, bullets ricocheting off the walls and ceiling and ground, the high-pitched giggles of Braces Lady rising above it all, and amidst the din Jaemin was shouting “run run run.” Jeno seized Chenle by the wrist and dragged him up and then he was half-carrying him down the hall. The heat of a bullet zinged past Jeno’s left ear, leaving burning pain in its wake but Jeno didn’t stop. He was running and Jaemin was running and Chenle was sobbing and the woman was laughing and  _ gunshots, gunshots, gunshots. _

They crashed down the stairs and into the apartment complex main room. The receptionist manning the front desk looked up at them with a startled expression. “What’s going—”

“Go, go, go!” Jeno yelled, charging past her and out of the apartment into the cold night air.  _ Hospital. I need to get Chenle to a hospital. I need to get us to safety.  _ His feet carried him down the street, and he tried to lug Chenle along but the younger boy was dead weight and only barely conscious.

Jeno’s foot tangled with Chenle’s ankles. They fell together over the curb, landing on hard concrete. Chenle gasped in pain, his eyes squeezed shut. Jaemin fiercely pulled Jeno’s arm. “Come on, get up,  _ come on _ .”

Jeno struggled to stand. 

“Lee?”

Jisung was sitting on a cardboard crate beside the nearby dumpsters. He took in Jeno and Jaemin. His face went slack when he saw Chenle, slumped over in Jeno’s grasp.

“Help,” Jeno croaked.

Those were the last words to leave his lips before there was a high-pitched wail of deranged laughter and the red-eyed man and woman burst out of the apartment complex, both of them disheveled and panting. The woman’s gaze fell on Jeno and Jeno saw his life flash before his eyes.

Jisung was a blur. Within moments, he had his arm wrapped around the woman’s neck in a choke hold, trying to get her to lower her gun. She bucked but he held tight, gritting his teeth, his face contorted, and in one swift, practiced movement swung his legs up and around to hook the woman’s neck and bring both him and the woman to the ground. Her gun slipped. It clattered several feet away.

“Go, Jeno,” shouted Jisung, shaking as he tried to keep a hold on the thrashing woman trapped underneath him. “Get out of here!”

The serial killer man’s boot connected with the side of his head and Jisung released a choked noise. He reached out, grabbed the man’s calf, and yanked his leg out from underneath him, sending him slamming to the ground. 

Jeno crawled forward on his knees and his hand closed around the cold metal of the gun. He got to his knees. Raised the weapon.

His hands didn’t shake. Why didn’t his hands shake?

Jaemin’s voice bellowed. “Jeno—”

_ Bang _ .

The woman on the ground went still. 

Jeno turned his aim toward the man and inhaled before steeling himself one more time and squeezing the trigger. The man, too, stopped moving, leaving Jisung gasping and shaking on the ground

The only noise in the street was the sound of Jeno’s heartbeat, raging endlessly in his ears. He stared at the steam curling off of the muzzle.

Slowly, he set the gun back onto the ground.

Jisung staggered to his feet, blood dripping from his nose. “Chenle—is he—”

Jeno turned to look over his shoulder at his brother, who was slumped on the ground, darkness dripping from his arm into an ugly splotch on the pavement. There was red. So much red.

Jeno’s head spun. Then the ground was rushing up to meet him, and everything went black.

###

It was nearing midnight and Renjun’s back was starting to ache from being seated at his desk for too many hours. His finger tapped against the trackpad of his computer, his brow furrowed as he scrolled through the Dark Net the way he did when he was bored but too restless to go to sleep.

He added item after item to his virtual cart, entertaining the possibility of one day buying them. A spiky cat collar for a pet he didn’t own. A pair of silicone spatulas even though he never cooked. A palette of acrylics despite him not having painted anything new for a while.

Except for the clicking of his mouse, the mansion was dead silent, most of the employees having been sent home hours ago. It was because of this silence that allowed him to pick up the faint knocking on the door from downstairs.

He paused on his sixty-fourth item, a handheld machine that supposedly sanitized paper money of its germs, and left his office to check the door. Halfway down the glass staircase, he noticed the shadowed figure of a pink-haired boy sitting near the foot of the stairs, obviously having tried to ascend yet gotten tired and sat down to take a rest.

“Jisung?” Renjun said. “Did you knock?”

The younger male glanced up at him. Renjun’s heart missed a beat.

The front of Jisung’s shirt was absolutely drenched in blood.

“Hi,” Jisung said weakly. “I let myself in.”

Renjun had reached the bottom of the stairs before he knew it. “Shit.  _ Shit _ .”

“It’s not my blood.” Jisung rose to his feet unsteadily. “Okay? Don’t freak out.”

A world of relief flooded Renjun’s his chest. “Then whose is it?”

“Not mine.” Jisung tried to take a step toward him but stumbled. Renjun took his shoulder, his shirt cold and damp underneath his fingers, and steadied him at arm’s length.

“Come on, boss,” Jisung murmured. He reached up to haphazardly swipe at the thin line of blood that trickled out of his nose. “No. Come on, Renjun. Give me a hug, will you?”

Renjun hesitated. Then in one swift movement, he pulled the younger boy to his chest, and held him there with a strong arm. Jisung nearly melted into him.

“What happened?” Renjun asked quietly. “Tell me.”

Jisung’s shoulders shook. “Bastards.”

“Who?”

Jisung’s voice was muffled. “All of them. Bloody bastards.”

“Who did it?”

“A bullet was too nice. They should have died from alcohol poisoning.” Jisung pulled back, but not entirely, still remaining halfly encircled by Renjun’s arms. His head was bowed and his lips moved fast. “Alcohol poisoning, so they could have suffered slow and wretched. Then they would have known what wretched is like. It’s so wretched, boss, to have your friend get shot at—it’s fucking  _ awful _ —serial killers have no souls. Why would you shoot a sixteen-year-old kid?”

The corner of Renjun’s lips lifted at the vaguely amusing and vaguely disturbing reality that while Jisung was aware that shooting at a sixteen-year-old was wrong, he didn’t seem to consider how he himself, a sixteen-year-old, had fired a gun and been fired at too many times to count.

“One of your classmates targeted by the SKS?”

Jisung wasn’t listening, though. “Lee had good aim. I wonder if he’s ever held a gun before. I don’t think he has.”

At that, Renjun’s eyes widened. His grip tightened on Jisung’s shoulder. “Lee? Lee Jeno?”

“Yeah.” Jisung lifted his head. He was taller than him, which Renjun resented, because it sort of stung his pride to have to look upward into the eyes of a boy he had raised. “It was Jeno’s house they came to.”

Renjun uttered a soft swear. It was exactly what Kang Seulgi had warned him about—Joo Geum had had buddies who’d be interested in revenge. But how had they known that it was Jeno who’d placed the order to kill Joo Geum? Renjun expected them to come to his own house first.  _ Dammit.  _

“Chenle. That’s his name. He’s Jeno’s younger brother. I was outside of their house when the serial killers got there. If I hadn’t been there—” Jisung shook his head.

“Where are they now?” Renjun asked urgently.

“The serial killers? On the street. Let’s just let the police rovers drag their bodies to the dump, yeah? I don’t want to deal with it.”

“No, I meant Lee. And your friend.”

“Oh, they’re here. I took them to the infirmary wing.” Jisung looked at him with cautious eyes. “That’s fine, right? Kunhang said he’d take good care of them.”

“Okay. Good. That’s good.” Kunhang was a good nurse—he’d patched Renjun up countless times, and Renjun had no doubt that he’d do a fine job of making sure Lee and his brother didn’t die on his hands. “Did they both get hurt?”

“Just Chenle. Renjun, I  _ carried _ him here—he lost so much blood. . . .”

Renjun surveyed Jisung’s face, which was pulled into a grimace. He wondered who this Chenle could be. Jisung hadn’t cared this much about another person for at least five years now.

“He will be fine,” Renjun said. The tone in his voice was firm and non negotiable. 

Jisung knew a command when he heard one. He let his forehead fall against the older male’s shoulder. They left words unspoken as they stood there together in the darkness of the mansion.

Moonbeams filtered in through the skylight above, illuminating them in a weak ring of light, and to anyone watching, the scene might have seemed strange—since when did mafia bosses treat their employees with such intimacy? Especially a door keeper? Since when did Huang Renjun have emotions?

All at once, Jisung lurched back, running a hand through his own hair anxiously. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t do this anymore. Hug you anymore.”

“Well, Sungie,” Renjun said, “I didn’t slice your fingers off. I think it’s fair to say that I don’t mind you hugging me.”

“I know, I know, but—” Jisung shook his head. “I don’t know. I know you demoted me and everything. I don’t want to be a burden to you. That would defeat the purpose of the demotion, wouldn’t it?”

Renjun didn’t respond.

_ You idiot _ , he thought quietly to himself.  _ That’s not it at all. _

Yet he did not correct Jisung’s misconception.

“Here’s the real question, though,” Renjun said, purposefully cracking a smile to let Jisung know that they were moving onto a lighter topic. “I’m very glad you happened to be at the scene when the Lees got attacked. Still, do you want to tell me what you were doing at Chenle’s house, loitering about?”

Jisung looked away. “Uh. He’s. It’s just . . . Well, you see—”

“Aha.” Renjun quirked an eyebrow. “How cute is he?”

“Chenle is in a lot of my classes, that’s all,” Jisung fumbled to explain. “I don’t even know him that well yet, I’ve only talked with him nine times. Well, nine point five, if you count that one time we accidentally saw each other in the school library—hey, stop it!”

Renjun was grinning. “Down to the decimal? Geez, Sung. Don’t tell me you’ve caught feels. How cute is he? What is his score?”

Jisung turned away and mumbled an indecipherable protest. His arm reached over the side of the staircase to dip his hand into the nearby chocolate fountain. The chocolate had stopped bubbling, the machine having begun to drain at midnight, but Jisung managed to snag a good handful of the sweet, rich liquid. He reached up to shove his fist in his mouth before it could drip over the floor.

Renjun grabbed his wrist to stop him. “Did you not just carry a bleeding Chenle across town?” he said. “No. Don’t eat that. Wash your hands. How about you go down to the kitchens, yeah? There might be something for you to eat there.”

“Alright.” Jisung lowered his hand with a rueful smile. “Don’t be such a mom, Mom.”

“I’m not a mom, I’m a mafia boss.”

“Fine. Don’t be such a mafia boss, boss.”

Renjun huffed. Jisung got off the stairs, wiping his messy hand on his pants, and used his boot to kick aside the carpet, exposing a square patch of colored tile amongst the sea of white tile. He squatted to pull the trapdoor open.

“I suppose I’ll go check on your friend and his brother,” Renjun intoned, turning to head toward the infirmary wing, which was on the first floor.

He stopped. He turned back. “Sung.”

“Yeah?” Jisung’s head popped up through the trapdoor.

“I’m curious,” Renjun said. “What score was he?”

Jisung bit his lip. “A . . . nine point seven. Maybe even a ten.”

Renjun’s laugh filled the lobby and Jisung’s face went pink. He quickly ducked back underneath the trapdoor and disappeared from view. Renjun left to head toward the infirmary, still chuckling to himself.

###

For the first time in a long time, Jeno didn’t have nightmares.

Instead, he had the strangest sort of soft, quiet dream.

In his dream, his eyes were shut, and there was a cool palm cupping the side of his cheek as well as a familiar voice murmuring in the background. Underneath him was a bed softer than the rigid mattress and beat-up sofa he had at his apartment. 

He leaned into the cool fingers on his face with a small hum of contentment. The hand left his face and then Jeno felt it again at his chest, resting lightly on his shirt.

“. . . too much caffeine,” said a low-pitched voice that rolled through the air like slow honey. “People seem to overlook caffeine as a legitimate drug. Trust me, caffeine overdose is very legitimate.”

“Redbull,” said a small voice. Jaemin. “He really likes Redbull.”

A hum. “You should make him cut back.”

“Okay, doc.”

“Don’t call me that, it’s Kunhang. Wong Kunhang. Renjun’s policy is that we all refer to each other with our surnames, but honestly, if we were going to go full badass, I’d much rather have an alias. The name Hendery sounds nice, doesn’t it? And Dejun wanted to go by Xiaojun. So we tried to convince Renjun to let us use those names, we circulated a petition and everything. Even got the female staff to join in.”

“Oho. An alias  _ does _ sound cool.”

“The assassins guild all have aliases, yes. It’s to protect their identities from the police, even though the police themselves aren’t much better than criminals. I guess the guild’s relationship with the police is a little rockier than ours, since, you know, the police like to indulge Renjun. The head sheriffs are this crew of four utterly gorgeous women, it’s wasted on Renjun, he’s incorrigibly gay—”

Jeno stirred. The hand resting on his chest retracted.  _ Is this not a dream?  _ he wondered.

“Oh, he’s up. Rise and shine,” said the honeyed voice. “Also, I apologize for my bedside manners. I don’t mean to purposefully talk your ear off. I’m just naturally chatty. How are you feeling?

Jeno pulled himself upright, rubbing his eyes. His throat felt dry and he croaked, “Do you . . . have any water?”

“Sure. One sec.” The man in the white coat beside him got up.

Jeno was on top of a downy white bed in a well-lit room, his sneakers placed on the ground nearby. Jaemin sat perched on a round swivel chair next to him, his eyes wide with open concern as he took in Jeno’s face.

“How do you feel?”

“Fine,” Jeno murmured. “Where are we? Am I awake?”

Jaemin nodded. “We’re in the infirmary wing at Huang’s place. Jisung—”

All at once, the events of the day came crashing back into Jeno. The serial killers. Bloodshot eyes. The gun. “Where’s Chenle?” Jeno asked suddenly.

Jaemin hesitated, and Jeno’s heart dropped— _ oh no _ —before Jaemin pointed at a bed nearby, where there slumbered a blanket-covered figure. Chenle’s left arm was wrapped with bandages so thoroughly that it made his bicep look twice as thick as normal. His eyes were shut, but his eyeballs moved underneath his lids in rapid, back-and-forth movements, and his mouth was set in a tense line. Jeno could only guess at what sorts of upsetting dreams he was having.

“Your brother will recover,” said the calm voice. It belong to the man in the white coat coming toward him, handing him a paper cup filled to the brim with water. “You don’t have to worry about him.”

Jeno returned the doctor’s smile, taking the cup and downing the entire thing in one go. The cool liquid felt immediately refreshing. “Thank you. What’s your name?”

“Kunhang.” The doctor sank into a chair by Jeno’s bedside and reached out toward him with the probe of a stethoscope. “Is it okay if I check your heart?”

“Uh. Sure.” Jeno let him place the metal instrument onto his chest. “How badly was Lele injured?”

“Well, here’s the thing,” Kunhang said, adjusting the stethoscope slightly. “Let me preface that. Hollywood’s absolutely crazy these days, yeah? I’m a huge fan of their work—I absolutely adore their top actress, Lee Jieun—but it’s not always medically accurate.” A wry laugh. “They like to pretend that getting shot, even in a non-critical area, is the same thing as accidentally getting hit by a stray tennis ball—harmless, maybe annoying. That’s not the case. You see, Chenle will definitely survive, but he’s going to be immobilized for a few weeks at the very least. Right now he’s on a shit-ton of pain meds, so don’t expect him to be conscious until tomorrow.”

Jeno felt the tension sag out of his body. “Okay. Cool. Cool.”

“Let’s talk about you, though, young man.” Kunhang hung the stethoscope around his own neck and leaned forward, resting his chin on his knuckles. “Your heart rate has been abnormally erratic ever since Jisung brought you in here, and you’re running a low fever. I’ve already heard a lot about your lifestyle and dietary choices from your friend here, but I want to hear it from you. What’s going on, lately?”

Jeno found himself staring into the older man’s sincere gaze. In that moment, Jeno thought about his phone call with Donghyuck, which seemed like ages ago even though it hadn’t been twenty-four hours since.

During the call, Donghyuck had spoken Mark’s name freely, without qualms, so unlike Jeno himself, who took it upon himself to walk on eggshells around the topic lest the familiar rage tighten his gut and send him into a downward spiral. His forehead still hurt from where he’d slammed it into the cafe counter some time back.

But enough was enough, Jeno decided.

“My brother,” he said. “I recently lost my brother.”

Kunhang hummed. “I see. How have you been coping?”

“I . . .” Jeno snuck a quick look at Jaemin, who gave him a stern look, as if warning him not to lie.  _ This is your chance to get help. Professional, medical help.  _ Jeno let out a sigh. “I have nightmares. I’m irritable a lot. I . . . I like Redbull.”

“How much is your daily intake of the drink?”

“Maybe six or seven cans? Six or seven a day.”

“Oh, my.” A sigh. “A can of Redbull has approximately eighty milligrams of caffeine, you know, which means a healthy adult is only supposed to drink maybe five a day at maximum.” 

“Jaemin drinks a lot of black coffee,” Jeno protested. “He’s usually fine.”

“That’s not taking into account his personal genetic tolerance to caffeine, which is likely different from yours,” he said. “You hear me? You need to cut back. I know the loss of a loved one is traumatic, but I can find you a therapist to help you work through it in a healthy, organic way.”

Jeno laughed. It was a mirthless noise. “I’m sorry. Therapy . . . I don’t think it’ll fit into my budget.”

All of the sudden, Jaemin stood up with such force that his chair rolled backward. His face was dark. “Do you guys have a kitchen in this palace?”

Kunhang looked surprised. “Oh? Yeah, we do. It’s on the floor below us.”

“Huang wouldn’t mind me baking something, would he?”

“Not at all. He’s got a terrible sweet tooth.” Kunhang used his foot to lift up the carpet on the floor of the infirmary. There was a square-shaped wooden trapdoor set into the ground. With practiced efficiency, the doctor grasped a nearby hidden lever and pulled, dragging the trapdoor open and revealing a staircase that descended downward.

Jeno’s eyebrows were halfway up his brow. “You have a secret shortcut to the kitchen?”

Kunhang laughed. “Renjun had them installed all over this place. The kitchens are a frequented destination for his staff.”

Jaemin gave Jeno’s hand a quick squeeze. “You should rest, honey. I’ll be back.”

Jeno nodded. He watched as Jaemin disappeared into the trapdoor. Kunhang pulled the lever again, effectively shutting the door, before he turned to Jeno with a questioning look.

“‘Honey?’”

Jeno waved an arm in dismissal and settled back into his pillows. “That’s nothing.”

There was a small knock and both Jeno and the doctor turned around to see Renjun leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest like he couldn’t have a care in the world. His eyes regarded Jeno coolly, flicked to Chenle’s form, then travelled back to Jeno. “I trust your boyfriend isn’t going to set a fire in my kitchen and accidentally burn down my house, is he?” 

“When did you get here, boss?” Kunhang asked, at the same time that Jeno blurted, “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Okay.” Renjun dragged out the second syllable of the word, showing clear skepticism. “Sure. How are you feeling, Lee? I hope the folks of the SKS didn’t knock you up too badly.”

Jeno folded his arms. “Do you want to tell me who those people were?”

Renjun raised an eyebrow. “Do you really not know?”

“ _ Should _ I know?”

“Wasn’t that what I just asked?”

“Stop answering questions with questions,” Kunhang said in exasperation.

“Yes. Doc’s right.” Jeno gave Renjun a narrow-eyed look that wasn’t far from a glare. “I hope you have answers for me, Huang. Just this afternoon I accept a job offer of yours, and then when I get home, my house gets  _ ambushed _ ? Don’t tell me you had nothing to do with it. There’s no reason why anyone would come after me.”

Renjun came closer until he stood at the foot of Jeno’s bed. “First off, I don’t think the attack had anything to do with the job offer. Plenty of my employees go their careers without a single instance of physical peril. Like Wong, here.”

Kunhang gave a helpful wave.

Jeno faltered. “Well, there has to be a reason why—”

“Violence for violence is rule number one of the criminal handbook,” Renjun said, his voice dry as salt. “Or didn’t you know?”

Jeno considered that for a moment, his face taking on an earnest look of confusion. Then it dawned on him. “This has to do with Joo Geum.”

Renjun sank into a chair. “Tell me. How much do you know about her?”

“ _ Fucking hell _ .” Jeno pulled his knees up to his chest. “Oh God. Donghyuck  _ knew _ . Donghyuck tried to warn me.”

“Who did?”

“He was right _.  _ I didn’t take him seriously. I didn’t know what to think.” Jeno cast an anguished look over at Chenle. “Oh, God. . .”

“Donghyuck,” Renjun repeated. “Haechan? That one assassin kid, in the guild? My, Lee, you impress me. I didn’t know you had a connection there.”

His words fell on deaf ears. “ _ You _ .” Jeno faced him with hot eyes. “You let this happen.”

Kunhang turned in his swivel chair to regard the mafia boss with critical eyes. “Renjun, wait. Dejun told me about some mission he went on last night. Said he’d had to go through a lot of security to get to the target. That was Jeno’s transaction, right?”

Renjun’s silence spoke the answer.

“Don’t tell me,” Kunhang said slowly, “that you let your client assassinate an important figure but then didn’t assign him  _ security _ measures to make sure he’d be safe from backlash?”

“Exactly! I didn’t know there was a society of serial killers!” Jeno threw up his hands. “I thought Joo Geum was, like, a solo serial killer! I didn’t know they came in  _ packs _ !”

“Calm down, calm down,” Renjun tried to placate him. “You’ll disturb your brother. Just be quiet and let me explain myself.”

It took a lot to make Jeno angry, but the nonchalance in Renjun’s voice was certainly enough to do the job. “I could have died, Huang. Even  _ worse _ , I could have lost my brothers. Do you know what that feels like?”

The question came out as a harsh whisper. Renjun took his animosity in stride.

“I deeply apologize, Lee. I really mean it. If I’m being one hundred percent honest, I have to admit that I’m not exactly sure how the SKS managed to track Joo Geum’s demise down to your doing. I expected them to take it out on me.” Renjun spread his hands. “Tell you what. I’ll compensate. The damages in your apartment? I’ll cover that. I won’t even make you pay for the health care you’re receiving from my doctor right now. You won’t have to spend a dime for all the expensive treatment your brother is currently receiving.”

“Hey, I wasn’t gonna ask for payment anyway,” Kunhang said.

Renjun ignored him. “How’s that, Lee? I don’t want any hard feelings between us, you know.”

Jeno stared at him in incredulity. 

Renjun judged his silence for hesitation. “I see. Well, if we’re going to get into the details, I have to let you know that I probably won’t let you leave my sight for the next two months. Or until whenever the SKS gets bored and forgets about you. Would you like to stay here, in this humble abode of mine, until that time? I’ll compensate for every aspect of your lodging. All you’d have to do is the basic secretary duties we discussed at our meeting yesterday.”

Jeno was shaking his head. “No, no, no. What are you talking about? There’s no reason I’d stay at your place. The serial killers. . .”

His gaze slowly sank until it landed on his own two hands, resting down in his lap so innocently. As if he hadn’t used them to fire a gun. 

_ Bang. Bang.  _

“Are they dead?” His voice sounded far away, even to himself.

“The assailants?” Renjun nodded. “Jisung said so. Said you had good aim.”

_ No, no, no, no, no.  _ “I . . . I didn’t . . .”

“You did,” Renjun said, but there was no unkindness in his tone. “It was you.”

Jeno’s face slackened.

_ I just don’t want my best friend to become a murderer _ , Jaemin had shouted at him, barely a week ago.

Jeno curled his hands into fists and pressed them into his eyes. “Oh no.”

“Hey, hey.” Kunhang laid his hand on Jeno’s knee. “I know what you’re feeling. But think about it like this: if you didn’t make that choice, it’s much more likely that you would have lost a brother today.”

Jeno took a shaky breath.

He’d have time to mourn over his own decisions later. Right now, he needed to straighten some things out with the mafia boss. “What . . . were you saying, Huang? About the lodging? And stuff?”

Renjun hummed. “Yes. The SKS are not satiated. They will keep coming for you, no matter what, but the risk of a fatality decreases if I take you in, so the optimal path of action is to do exactly that.”

“Uh . . . too many big words.” Jeno rested his head on his pillow. He felt drained, and absently wondered if he could find a Redbull somewhere, before he remembered that that wasn’t allowed anymore. “Please say something that makes sense.”

“Stay with me,” Renjun said, clearly and firmly. “You and your brother both. Even your boyfriend, if you like.”

“He’s not . . .” Jeno trailed off. He chose not to argue. “Thank you. I’m going to accept your offer.”

“Good.”

The infirmary was quiet. The deal was sealed.

“Okay, cool,” said Kunhang. “Glad we’ve got that all sorted out, boss. Now leave. Jeno needs to rest.”

“Right.” Renjun got up from his chair. “My, whatever that boy is making in the kitchen smells delightful. Jisung will have a ball.”

Sure enough, the smell of rich chocolate was permeating the air.  _ Chocolate crepes _ , Jeno surmised. Crepes had always been Jaemin’s go-to comfort food. With a pang he thought of Donghyuck, who had always been a crepe-lover. Donghyuck had told him he was coming, right? The thought of seeing his friend again made Jeno’s chest fill with warm relief. 

Vaguely he was aware of Kunhang turning off the lights of the infirmary. “Sleep well, Lee,” said the honey-voiced doctor.

“Mmm,” Jeno mumbled, pulling the blankets up over him.

He dreamt of nothing. It was bliss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hurr hurr hurr, things are getting interesting ;)
> 
> i hope you enjoyed this chappie, lmk if you liked it! I totes appreciate comments and kudos.
> 
> also remember pls stay safe, wash ur hands well, eat protein, etc etc! 
> 
> ~ Yerin 031420


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Props to my beta for being sweet and crackhead and amazing.

Rumor had it that the owner of the Color Factorial ate and drank only one thing for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, day after day. That one thing was color.

Yoonoh could never quite get enough of color.

“Fan fiction,” he tried to explain, to a bemused fan at one of his first public appearances. She had asked what his job was like. “It’s like making fan fiction. Do you know what I mean?”

She’d shaken her head politely, and he’d shrugged with a dimpled smile before signing the autograph sheet she’d held out at him. He hid his delight at seeing that the pen she’d selected had ink the color of nxi. Nxi had been his first creation. 

As his career progressed, and as he steadily produced color after color and attended interviews and red carpets and award ceremonies and fellow celebrity weddings, he stopped really trying to explain what his trade was like. It was because no one seemed to understand. So instead of laboring to help them come to a realization that was already so casually clear to him, Yoonoh would flash the camera a vague smile and say, “I suppose it can all be traced back to just my intrinsical magic.”

Yoonoh owned a lot of factories. And sure, he ran an enterprise that spanned the globe and enamored countless people who were dazzled at the idea of there existing more than just the classic 7 colors (and variants) that they had grown up with. Yoonoh had long stopped keeping track of exactly how many figures his monthly income entailed—he was undeniably one of the most eligible bachelors in the world.

But the thing he liked most about his trade was something he called the genesis. It was what others would refer to as brewing. Today was the third Tuesday of the month; today was genesis day.

As soon as he woke up, Yoonoh holed himself up in his basement, powered off his phone, and put on an old hoodie and a pair of sweats. He prepared a couple glasses of boba milk tea, mostly just for the sake of the calming ritual of boiling the boba and steeping the tea, and settled down at his desk with two mirrors, an assortment of beakers, a holo-copy of the Updated Periodic Table of the Elements, and an icebox full of vials brimming with near every fathomable chemical and compound that science had to offer.

After pulling on lab goggles and setting up the mirrors to face each other, Yoonoh selected two or three random vials. To anyone watching, the following process might seem quite cavalier—all Yoonoh did was squint at the vials, write names and measurements into his lab notebook, and proceed to dump the liquids together into a beaker with shocking carelessness.

But he knew what he was doing. The evidence came quick: all at once, a plume of an enormously rich ethereal gas seeped out of the beaker, spilling over the lip of the glass and onto the table. This mist had no color and at the same time _some_ color—it was something like red, yet not quite red, almost like a sultry wine red-blue-purple. it was inexplicable, and wholly original, its brilliance amplified by Yoonoh’s strategically placed mirrors. The mist tumbled into Yoonoh’s outstretched palm.

He grinned down at it, his eyes soft. Now came his favorite part: making names.

 _Pouer_. He settled on pouer because it sounded like a mixture of power and powder, and plus he liked the triphthong. He could already envision its projection in the market: it would debut in his cosmetic line as eyeshadow or lip shimmer.

After capping the beaker with pseudowrap, Yoonoh moved on to pick two new vials and mix them the same way he had the first time. This time, the combination created a kick of sparks and heat that jumped from the beaker to lick at Yoonoh’s jaw. He laughed. _Spicy._ He’d name this one spiceye. 

On and on, this went. His basement had no clocks and no windows to gauge the position of the sun, but he didn’t mind losing track of time. It must’ve been early evening by the time he had four dozen beakers sitting on his desk, each of them full with a gas in a special and alien color that, so far, no one but him had ever laid eyes on. His marketing team would probably cut the majority of the colors and just keep the ones they thought would sell best. Those shades would go on to be heavily promoted until release for preorder—and, months after that, they would finally debut in the market as full-fledged hues.

He took off his goggles and gloves to rub his face with a weary, satisfied smile. Genesis had that effect on him. In his mind, the 7 basic colors of the world were canon, and brewing new colors was for him like writing fan fiction. He could never grow tired of it—genesis was one of the two things that kept him enthusiastic about his life.

Yoonoh exited his basement at around three in the morning and went up to his bedroom. Yawning, he flicked on the lights, and his eyes widened.

Stretched out on top of his bed was a slender man clad in a long-sleeved pinstriped shirt, the buttons undone to almost his navel. His dark, large eyes opened to meet Yoonoh’s.

If Yoonoh was the third most eligible bachelor in the world, then this man was likely the second.

“Hey,” greeted Yoonoh. “Taeyong.”

Taeyong pulled himself upright, his hands curling into the bed sheets beneath him. He blinked several times and ran a hand through his hair. “Took you long enough to get here.”

“Genesis day.” Yoonoh shrugged, checking his own reflection in the closet mirror. “Did you let yourself in through the front door?”

“Nah. I used the window.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Dunno,” Taeyong admitted. “I fell asleep. It’s probably been a few hours.”

Yoonoh turned over his shoulder to give Taeyong a wry smile. Then he turned back to the mirror. “You know, if I were anyone else, you climbing into my bedroom through my window without me knowing would be mighty suspicious indeed.”

“Suspicious? Me? Never.” Taeyong got up from the bed. He cracked his neck. “You’re used to me.”

It was the truth. Yoonoh couldn’t remember a time when it wasn’t normal to find Taeyong in his house in all hours of the day.

Taeyong watched him in the mirror, his brow furrowed into the slightest of frowns. “Long day? You haven’t even complimented my outfit yet.”

“It’s a great outfit,” agreed Yoonoh. “I’m just . . . a little tired.”

“Mmm,” hummed Taeyong. “C’mon, babe. Look at me.”

Yoonoh turned obediently. By God, Taeyong was handsome. He reached up to cup Yoonoh’s cheek, and Yoonoh readily leaned into his touch, letting his eyes flutter shut as Taeyong stood on his toes to press gentle kisses to his jaw, his nose, and each of his eyelids. 

“Headache?” he murmured.

In response Yoonoh let out a low whine. Taeyong knew—of course he knew. Yoonoh had been born with an abnormal plethora of photoreceptors in his eyeballs, which allowed him to perceive colors that most people couldn’t dream of, but also made his head throb if he stimulated himself too far. Last week, he’d gone to the doctor with a headache complaint and his doctor had recommended restricting genesis to once every other month.

 _Not gonna happen_. Yoonoh would never give up genesis. It was one half of his life’s motivation. 

The other half was standing right in front of him.

There was a _click_ as Taeyong turned off the lights and led Yoonoh over to the bed. Yoonoh sensed with a rush of gratitude that Taeyong knew he was too worn out to partake in any of their usual activities tonight—the only contact between them was his arm resting across Yoonoh’s shoulders in a chaste gesture of support.

“Any updates on the world of crime?”

Taeyong chuckled. “Yeah, actually. Huang had a bit of a disaster today.”

“Oh?”

It wasn’t every day that Taeyong brought news about his infamous colleague. Yoonoh had always harbored a sort of grim respect for the boy, who had to be a couple years younger than them yet seemed to be just as qualified and ruthless as Taeyong.

“Yep. Apparently, he dabbled in what’s supposed to be Irene’s work, and didn’t provide proper protection for his client. So of course his client was revenge-clapped. There was a shooting, in the east side of the metropolis.”

“Did anyone die?” Yoonoh asked, inwardly hating by the violence that came with his boyfriend’s world.

“Yeah. My scout told me it was just the perpetrators who got killed, though.”

Yoonoh whistled. “That means the client stood up for himself.”

Taeyong scoffed. “He shouldn’t have had to. This is why we let the assassin’s guild take on this kind of business. Huang’s going to start giving us mafia leaders a bad rep.”

Yoonoh leaned back, his head falling onto his mattress. “I can already tell you’re going to chew him out at tomorrow’s summit.”

“You know I will. You’ll be there too, right?”

A laugh. “You have got to stop dragging me into your crime world shenanigans.”

Calloused fingertips brushed his bangs off his forehead. “I’m more careful than Huang,” Taeyong whispered. “I won’t let anyone lay a finger on you.”

 _I know, love_.

Yoonoh rolled onto his side. The bed sheets smelled lime green—it was Taeyong’s cologne, the one Yoonoh had given him on his birthday last week.

“It must be chaos over at Huang’s.” Taeyong’s words cascaded into the silence of the dark room. “I wonder what they’re up to right now.”

“Yeah,” Yoonoh mumbled, his mind already fuzzy with sleepiness. “I wonder . . .”

###

As morning dawned on the Huang mansion, Jeno awoke to the sound of someone singing. 

It was Kunhang. When he saw Jeno’s eyes had opened, he stuck his head into Jeno’s line of vision. “Wakey wakey!” he chirped. “Did you sleep well?”

“Mhhgmghm,” Jeno said, his brain too tired to form coherent words. He rubbed his eyes, groped for his glasses, found them underneath his pillow, and sat up in bed. For a moment he wondered where he was.

Then it all came back to him. The infirmary. The shooting. The gun, cool to the touch, clutched between Jeno’s hands— _bang. Bang._

His gaze fell on Chenle, still fast asleep in an adjacent hospital bed and bandaged to the point of near-asphyxiation. “How’s my brother?”

“He’ll be awake sometime later today,” Kunhang assured him, bustling about the infirmary. “Your friend Jaemin baked some delicious cakes last night out of the leftover chocolate in the lobby’s chocolate fountain. He told me to tell you that he’s out at work right now but will be back this evening.” He handed Jeno a cup of water. “Also, the boss called an hour ago. He said you’re to begin working today.”

“ _Today_?” 

“Yeah. It’s a weekday. Before you run off, there’s an all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet in the staff lounge, and you have to make sure you get a good meal, okay? I don’t want you passing out anytime soon from malnourishment. You look awfully skinny.”

“I am not skinny,” Jeno said, although the protest rang false even to him. Grudgingly, he got out of bed—with a nose wrinkle, he realized he was still wearing his clothes from yesterday. “Where’s the staff lounge?”

“Oh dear. I don’t think I even know the way myself.” Kunhang reached for the phone at his desk. “Hang on, let me call for one of the other staff. They can lead you to it.”

The person that arrived was a woman with hair dyed a delicate shade of pinkish blonde. She introduced herself as Sana. Jeno followed her out of the infirmary, down a flight of stairs, and through a corridor that had walls covered floor-to-ceiling with acrylic paintings that depicted various flowers and trees. 

Jeno’s stomach grumbled. He placed a hand over his belly and shushed it.

Sana threw a smile at him. “Hungry, right?”

Jeno tried his best not to look too desperate when he nodded. “This is some nice artwork you’ve got here,” he said.

Sana nodded. “The boss likes to paint. Here, check this one out—it was his first piece.”

She pointed out an enormous portrait that was easily eight feet tall and, unlike the rest of the paintings, didn’t depict a scene of nature. Instead, it was a painting of a person. A boy, with a basketball tucked under his arm and an easy grin angled toward someplace that wasn’t captured on the canvas. The piece seemed to have been accomplished entirely with fingerprints, the artist having dipped their fingers again and again into paint.

Jeno squinted. The boy in the painting had no face, except for his grin. The space where his eyes and nose should have been was blank.

“His first piece?” Jeno thought aloud. “How long have you known him?”

“Me?” Sana pursed her lips. “Since he’s started working in the field. The girls and I—that’s me and my sisters, there’s nine of us in total—have been loyal to Huang since the beginning. It’s been, what, seven years? I think so.”

“Seven,” Jeno repeated. “How old is he?”

“Meh. The mafia handbook tells us to spread rumors that he’s immortal.” 

“Is he?” 

“No! God, no.” Sana’s laugh filled the hallway. “He’s twenty.”

 _Same as me,_ Jeno realized, with a chill.

They left the hallway of art. The smell of rich chocolate pervaded the air, accompanied by the clink of forks and cups, and a low murmur of voices. Sana threw open a pair of doors and entered the lounge, which was a room with L-shaped couches, curtains embroidered with delicate fleurs-de-lis, and a table that hosted a sprawling buffet of croissants, muffins, too many breeds of orange juice, and a dizzying amount of miniature chocolate cakes that Jeno immediately recognized as Jaemin’s handiwork. Seated on the couches were several chatting women who seemed to be about Sana’s age. One of them spared Jeno a glance as he walked in—she flashed Sana a smile and gestured for her to come over.

“Be right there,” Sana called. “Jeno, I hope you enjoy breakfast. I look forward to seeing you around more often, colleague.”

Jeno nodded. “You, too.” He grabbed a bagel, ready to dig in.

Then something occurred to him and he turned back to Sana. “Wait.”

“Yes?”

“If the boss is currently twenty years old, and he’s been in the industry for seven years. . .” Jeno made a face. “Doesn’t that mean he’s been a mafia boss since he was thirteen?”

Sana smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Doesn’t it?”

She left Jeno standing there, at a loss and feeling utterly floored. Quickly, he dug a knife into the cream cheese bowl and spread it over his bagel in uneven clumps, then took an enormous bite, hoping the distraction of good food would help him forget the image that’d popped into his mind of a tiny, prepubescent Huang sitting at his enormous desk in his glass-walled office surrounded by a gritty city that was outlined in the smog of a child trying to be an adult.

Jeno had gotten through two and a half bagels before an announcement rang over the mansion loudspeakers, startling him into nearly dropping his croissant.

“ _Lee Jeno, please report to my office. And, kindly stop stuffing your face with my expensive French cuisine. Thank you._ ”

Sana and her sisters giggled at him from the couch and one of them made a shooing motion toward the door. Jeno wiped his mouth with a napkin, and, not seeing a proper trash can nearby, stuffed it into his pocket along with the rest of his bagel. He left the lounge quickly.

Unsurprisingly, he got lost.

Huang’s mansion was way bigger than he had expected. After ten minutes of Jeno walking down hallways, running down hallways, poking his head through random doors, getting stuck at dead ends, retracing his steps, somehow winding back up again at the lounge with half an intent of asking Sana to help him find his way, but then chickening out because she was _really_ intimidating with all of her _friends_ , the voice over the loudspeaker piped up.

“ _What’s taking so long, Lee?_ ”

“I’m lost,” Jeno said, to no one in particular, opening a nearby door and finding a room stocked with all sorts of funny-looking plants. “Why do you have an indoor rainforest in your house?”

He jolted when he got a reply. “ _I see you. That’s my expensive overseas potted trees collection, don’t touch.”_

“Can you . . . hear me?”

“ _Yes, there’s something called security cameras. Now exit that room, then take a left turn.”_

Jeno complied.

“ _Yes, there, there_ — _take a left turn_ — _wait, no, you missed it. It’s fine, just keep walking straight until you find the piano room. No, no, that’s not the piano room. Jesus, didn’t Wong give you a map?”_

Jeno shouldered into the closest door. He stumbled back with a strangled noise at the live tiger slumbering a pace away in a gilded cage.

Quickly, he shut the door. “Is that animal _real_?”

Renjun groaned over the loudspeaker. “ _Hang on. I’ll come fetch you. Stay there.”_

Jeno blew out a breath. As he leaned against the closest wall, he got the bad feeling that the loudspeaker was audible all around the mansion—which meant that every employee in this godforsaken place had listened to Renjun berating him.

Soon enough, a voice called out his name, and he glanced to the left to see Huang’s figure striding through the hallway toward him.

The mafia leader wore a turtleneck same as always, and carried a large black tote bag over one shoulder. He gave Jeno a cursory once-over, then spun around and started walking off, jerking his head in a nod to say _come on, follow_.

Jeno hurried after him. Renjun’s boots echoed in steady _click-clacks_ against the floor. The two of them walked in silence for a great amount of time, in which at one point Jeno suddenly realized that Renjun was a considerable deal shorter than him. He guessed he’d just never noticed it before, what with Renjun’s professional confidence and grace.

Renjun dug into his tote bag and pulled out a tote bag identical to his own, then thrust it at Jeno. “Your uniform’s in here. You can get changed in my office bathroom, upstairs.”

They had reached the lobby. Jeno spotted Jisung sitting by the door, his long limbs draped over a chair as he fiddled with his phone in one hand and absently rolled a pencil between his knuckles in the other hand. When he glimpsed Jeno, he raised his pencil in a haphazard wave.

“Up you go,” Renjun said, gesturing for Jeno to start his trek up the twin glass staircases. “It’ll be the last door. You’ve been there before.”

“You’re not coming with me?” 

Renjun snorted. “No, I’m going to take the elevator.”

Jeno’s spirits lifted at the prospect of that. “An elevator!”

“Don’t get too excited.” Renjun started walking away. “It’s my private elevator. My employees can’t use it, they have to take the stairs.”

“What?” Jeno stared after him.

“Better get used to it, Lee,” Jisung called from his stead at the door. “I hear your quarters are on the eighty-fourth floor.”

_Eighty-fourth floor._

“You look like you’re about to cry,” Jisung remarked.

Jeno took a deep breath, tried to channel his inner athlete, and began the ascent.

###

“Here’s your paperwork for the day,” Renjun said, dropping an eight-inch stack of papers down onto Jeno’s desk. Another heave and then a second large intimidating white stack was set down beside the first one. “And here’s tomorrow’s paperwork, it’s twice as long as today’s so you might want to get a head start on it soon. If you start running behind schedule, you’re probably hopeless and I’ll end up firing you before the end of the week.” 

He gave Jeno a defeated smile. “Except I can’t fire you, because of all our conditions, blah blah yes yes. So you’re just going to have to learn quickly, hmm?”

“Right,” Jeno said, his gaze sliding from Renjun’s smile back down to the paperwork in front of him. _I’ve never seen so many sheets of paper in my life._ “Sure.”

They were in Jeno’s eighty-fourth floor office, which was little more than a white-walled room with a table, a chair, and a pitcher of water. Jeno had changed into the uniform inside the tote bag Renjun had given him: long-sleeved turtleneck, straight-legged jeans, and boots with a bit of a heel to them. The eeriest part about it all was that every article was an identical shade of vantablack. When Jeno had put on the uniform he’d gotten the horrible feeling that what he was wearing was worth more than a college tuition.

“My holo-stamp is in the second drawer on your left,” Renjun said. “Also, please write the date on everything you document. Some of my colleagues prefer electronic paperwork, but then I have to teach you how to handle elite technology and that’s not a good use of my time. So instead, just read through these papers, file them alphabetically, mark down the specifications of each of the transactions . . .”

Jeno tried his best to pay attention, but mostly he was distracted by the large circular window to his right that had a lip of a balcony and exposed the gaping cityscape down below. _A lifetime of work in this office . . . a lifetime of work for the crime boss of this contempire_. Not for the first time, he wondered if there was a loophole in his contract in which he could escape retribution for his jewelled rose fiasco.

“Are you even listening to me? Lee. _Lee._ ”

“Sir yes sir,” Jeno blurted, turning back toward Renjun, who raised an unconvinced eyebrow at him. _Wow_ , _his eyebrows are dyed lavender to match his hair,_ Jeno thought.

“Call me boss,” Renjun sniffed, leaning back. 

Jeno nodded. “Boss. Yes. Boss.”

Renjun rolled his eyes at the hesitation in Jeno’s tone. “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.” He made his way over to the door. “I’ll check on you in about five hours. I expect the paperwork to be at least seventy percent done by then. Think you can handle it? Great. Bye.”

He left, without waiting for a response to his question. The door shut behind him and Jeno’s heart sank as the office was enveloped in silence except for the quiet tick-tock of the holo-clock in the corner of the room.

Gingerly he picked up the first piece of paper off the stack, and began to read.

###

_In high school, Jeno thought in cycles of weekdays._

_It was either Friday or Monday or the miscellaneous goo in between. He didn’t care much about schoolwork and during chem class he would excuse himself to “use the restroom,” hide his basketball underneath his shirt, and then sneak out to the blacktop, cancelling out complex stoichiometric equations for the calming steadiness of dribbling a ball beneath the pads of his fingertips._

_When Jeno came home from school, Mark would inspect his hands. No matter how much hand sanitizer Jeno used, basketball grime residue was practically ingrained into his fingerprints. An integral part of his identity._

_“You’ve been cutting class,” Mark said, lowering Jeno’s hands. “I’m getting you a chemistry tutor.”_

_Most of the time this was an empty threat. Both of them knew that tutors were pricey and money was tight, especially with Mark’s growing student loans. Part of the reason why Jeno didn’t bother studying was because even though Mark was a superhero of a brother, Mark was also only barely equipped to pay for his own education, much less Jeno’s. There was hope for Chenle, who studied well, and was younger than Jeno by four years_ — _an age gap wide enough that by the time Chenle’s time rolled around, they might be in a better financial state._

_But none of these possibilities existed for Jeno. His life was written: basketball kid, dusty fingertips, dusty future, nowhere to go._

_Not until one day, when Mark succeeded in finding Jeno a tutor who worked for free._

_His name was Jaemin._

###

In his office, Jeno spent five hours reading the same five sheets of paper and trying to make sense of all of the fine print.

A sizable portion of the fine print was written in Mandarin, and since Jeno was absolutely _terrible_ at Mandarin he mostly just doodled and shuffled the stack of papers around and folded some of the blanker ones into origami.

Suddenly, there was a knock. His head whipped toward the door, and he held his breath for Renjun to come striding in demanding to know if he’d gotten anything done. But the door remained shut and Jeno glanced about to see where the knocking came from.

His gaze landed on the window, where the humped shape of a bird could be seen prone out on the balcony.

Jeno scrambled to his feet and threw open the window, hurrying out onto the balcony toward the animal. It didn’t stir as he approached.

He could hear Chenle’s voice in his head telling him it wasn’t a great idea to pick up random urban wildlife, but— _fuck it, I’m soft for animals_ , Jeno thought, and knelt and gently gathered the bird into his hands. He turned it over onto its side.

What he saw made him blanch. The bird’s face was a network of glowing wires and cogs. For a moment he stared down at it, unsure of what to think, before he remembered a recent TV commercial he’d seen advertising android carrier pigeons as the new latest social media device.

He turned the bird over in his palm, marvelling at the machinery and clockwork underneath the bird’s pseudofeathers.

Why would the carrier pigeon bump into his window? Weren’t they programmed to do better?

He saw an orange tag at the android’s left ankle and, without thinking, tugged on it.

Instantly a flash of light burst out of the pigeon’s pores, ballooning into a sophisticated 3-D hologram made of pale teal light. Pixels swarmed into the shape of a face, frowning at Jeno.

“You’re not Huang,” said the stranger.

And then Jeno let out a cry and nearly dropped the pigeon because _oh my God oh my God this was Ten_ , Jeno’s celebrity crush since forever, the person whose weekly livestreams Jeno watched every other Thursday without fail for the past eight years.

“Should’ve known the carrier pigeon would’ve been faulty,” said another voice, its corresponding face popping up on the hologram beside Ten’s. “It didn’t seem quite as reliable as an email.”

“I know, Johnny,” Ten said, “but that hasn’t got nearly as much flair. Kid, who are you?”

It took Jeno a moment to realize he was talking to him. “What—me? I—no one. I mean, Lee Jeno. I’m . . .” He cast about for the word. What had Renjun said was his position here again? “A secretary?” 

“Of course he is,” said the man named Johnny. “He’s wearing Renjun’s company’s uniform, anyhow. That’s a giveaway.”

“Should I take this call to the boss?” Jeno asked, getting to his feet. A bigger question weighed on his mind: _why is Ten contacting the mafia boss?_

“Hmm,” said Ten. “Well, I mean, the only reason I called was to see if Renjun’s coming to the summit later today. Do you know if he is?”

“No, I don’t. I’m sorry. What’s a summit?”

Johnny whistled. “Wow, he’s green.”

“Well,” Jeno said. “Yes, today’s my first day on the job.”

“You said your name was Lee Jeno?” Johnny turned to Ten with a questioning look. “Wait, haven’t we heard of him before?”

Jeno blinked hopefully. “I’m a huge fan of yours! Of you, Ten. I’ve been following you since forever and I”— He bit his lip. “I don’t know. I’m just—wow. Seeing you, talking to you right now . . . Wow.”

Ten’s laugh was genuine. “He’s so sweet! I like him.”

“But you like anyone who’s your fan,” Johnny sighed. “And I’m sweet too.” 

“Even though you’re not my fan,” Ten said.

“I am your fan.”

“But you’re my stylist.”

“Can’t I be a stylist and a fan?”

“Oh, babe, if you were a little less oblivious, you could be _much more_ than just that—”

“What did we say about not calling me pet names?” 

“This is what I mean,” Ten grumbled.

“I’m sorry, should I end the call here?” Jeno broke in, sensing rising tension between the two men on the other line.

“No, no, darling,” said Ten quickly. “I think I know where I’ve heard about you. Your friend Na Jaemin came in the other day—”

“Jaemin? What? _Why_?”

Johnny elbowed Ten. “Stop,” he muttered. “You can’t divulge personal information, remember? That’s part of his contract.”

“Contract?” Jeno brought the carrier pigeon closer to his face, effectively bringing the hologram closer as well. “What contract.”

“Nothing. No contract,” Ten said cheerfully. “Have a good day, sir. Tell Huang he should come to the summit.”

There was a beep and the hologram vanished. The pigeon suddenly spasmed in Jeno’s hands, its wings thrashing, and with a yelp Jeno released it. It struggled up into the sky and flew off.

“I should buy one of those,” said a voice from behind Jeno, startling him so badly he almost fell off the balcony.

Renjun sat perched on top of Jeno’s desk, his elbows on his knees as he tilted his head at Jeno with a faint smile on his face. 

“You know, when I received the notification that you had opened your window, I was half-afraid you’d decided to jump.”

“How long have you been lurking there?” Jeno said, before he could stop himself.

“Lurking?” Renjun clucked his tongue and swung his legs off the desk. “Harsh words for someone who came as soon as he could in hopes of saving you from an untimely demise.

“What? Demise? I’m not suicidal.”

“But you see, that’s exactly what a suicidal person might say,” Renjun said. He tapped Jeno’s stack of papers. “How much work did you get through?”

Jeno hesitated before he decided it probably wasn’t a good idea to lie. “Not that much.”

“That’s what I expected,” Renjun sighed, surveying the doodles Jeno had made on the corner of one of the sheets of paper. Renjun’s gaze lingered on the small basketball and hoop Jeno had drawn. “Do you play?”

“Play basketball?” Jeno said. The question was unexpected. “Uh, yeah. I mean, it’s a hobby. I’m not that good.”

_Liar. Liar, liar, liar._

All at once Jeno was taken by the sensation of Mark scowling down at him from heaven. He had always tried to make Jeno feel more confident in his talents. 

_Mark_. Jeno picked up one of the origami cranes sitting on his desk and used his fingertips to bend one of its perfect wings out of shape. Pretty things didn’t deserve to exist when Mark didn’t get to, either.

Two nights ago Jeno had watched the video footage of Dejun torturing Joo Geum. He’d been sure to watch it alone, with headphones, so neither Jaemin nor Chenle could chance upon walking by and hearing the nightmarish noises that came from the video. Dejun had been horribly, terribly, _limitlessly_ ruthless.

The video had been half an hour long. Jeno could barely get through the first five minutes before he flung down his phone and pressed his hand against his heart in a futile attempt to steady the pulse there. Joo Geum’s screams, ripe with agony, echoed again and again in Jeno’s mind.

He had opened the video expecting to feel a savage pleasure, but all he’d felt was sickened by the violence. The only thing that consoled him was that she had deserved every minute of it.

“I had a friend, once, who was a basketball player,” Renjun said, pulling Jeno out of his thoughts. 

He resolved to banish thoughts of Joo Geum from his mind for the rest of the day. 

“Really?” Jeno said. “A basketball player.”

There was something peculiar in the way Renjun was peering at Jeno right now. As if he were picking him apart. “Yes. He wanted to go pro. His number was 00.”

Jeno hadn’t pegged Renjun for the type to make small talk, but then again, Jeno certainly wasn’t complaining about a chance to talk basketball. “Really? Me, too. My number has always been 00.”

“I see.”

Silence stretched between them. Jeno’s stomach mumbled in hunger.

“Lunch. Right.” Renjun hopped off the desk. “There are snacks in the lounge, but there will probably be food at the summit. I think it’s Lee’s turn to host—he likes to serve pizzas and coke, but on his boyfriend’s birthday he served pina coladas and I think that just goes to show how love is inevitably the only cure to laziness.”

“Lee? Lee who?” Jeno followed him to the door. A worm of fear wriggled in his gut. “You’re not . . . taking _me_ with you to the summit _,_ are you?” He had the sudden vision of himself woefully huddling in the corner at a business meeting full of dangerous people in tuxedos and pencil skirts.

“His name is Lee Taeyong and yes, you are indeed coming with me to the summit.” Renjun headed down the hallway. “It starts in a couple hours, so I think we can afford to stop at a salon on the way there and get your hair done, mmm?”

Right. The hair makeover. “I was actually planning on doing that at home.”

“If this is about salons being expensive, then I’ll just cover the cost for you.”

Jeno scratched his neck. “Isn’t it like a hundred dollars, though?”

“Lee, the bagel in your pocket is easily twice that much. Trust me when I say I have money to spare to get you a new hairdo. Don’t take it personally—it’s just policy.” Renjun cast a rogue smile over his shoulder at him. “Also, I mean, you’re not bad on the eyes as it is, but some dye would turn you into an absolute heartthrob. You can take _that_ bit personally.”

 _Did he just . . . ?_ Jeno’s cheeks heated. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had flirted with him. He couldn’t remember how to respond. “I—uh. Oh. Thank you?”

Renjun didn’t respond, just turned back around with a shrug.

They walked on.

###

For the summit, someone had rented out the penthouse of a skyscraper hotel and placed clusters of green-and-white balloons near the entrance of the hotel valet service. “So we know where to go,” Renjun explained, at Jeno’s bemused expression. “I know, I know. The balloons make it seem like we’re going to a birthday party of some sort, but it’s all just precaution. A disguise. You’ll see.”

They took the elevator up to the penthouse. Quiet music strummed through the speakers, with someone singing in a language long archived. Jeno checked out his reflection in the metallic surface of the wall, glad to see that for once he didn’t have bags underneath his eyes.

With a _ding_ , the elevator reached the top. Before the doors could open, Renjun pressed the Close button to make them stay shut, then he turned to Jeno with an expectant expression.

It took Jeno a moment to realize that Renjun was probably checking to make sure he was ready. An uncharacteristically nice gesture.

“So this is just a business meeting for you and your colleagues,” Jeno finally said. “Are there a lot of important people here?”

“Depends on your definition of important,” Renjun said. “You’ll see the rival mafia boss, probably the weaponsmaster, and a few large shareholders. But they’re definitely all relevant to the world that you and I live in.”

He said this like his and Jeno’s world was not the same world that belonged to the rest of humanity. _Probably because the rest of humanity doesn’t deal with orderly crime_ , Jeno reasoned.

“Here we go, then,” Renjun said, and pressed the Open button.

Jeno had expected a grand table, one decked out with neat notepads at each seat and professional place cards with cursive names inscribed on them. Instead, the penthouse looked almost like the event of an actual birthday party—except one done by a haphazard teenager who did it while mostly focusing on playing holo-games at the same time.

Various well-dressed people that Jeno didn’t know lounged on a ring of couches pushed into a misshapen circle, and in the center of the congregation was a collapsible party table with a cheap pseudoplastic tablecloth. Pizza boxes and half-finished Coke bottles were scattered here and there across the floor. A few spare balloons bobbed against the ceiling of the room.

“Welcome!” A young woman wearing an off-the-shoulder rainbow sweater jumped up from the couch to greet Renjun and Jeno. “So you made it.”

“Hey, Yeri. Is Bae around?” Renjun asked, stretching out his hand to shake the woman’s.

 _Bae?_ Jeno wondered.

“No, Irene’s not in town,” said the woman. 

_Oh, they meant Bae Irene_. Jeno’s shoulders relaxed.

Then they shot right back up again when it hit him that he was right now standing face-to-face with one of the bigshots of the assassin industry. Donghyuck had told him some time ago about his coworkers at the Assassin’s Guild, describing them as five drop-dead goddesses, and back then, Jeno had chalked it up to Donghyuck being a hormone-ridden teenager—but now that Jeno was seeing Yeri in person, he could definitely admit to seeing the appeal. 

Yeri and Renjun traded conversation back and forth, talking stocks and other business stuff. Eventually Jeno took the initiative to wander away from Renjun and crouch by the closest pizza box next to the couch. He tried not to let show exactly how hungry he was, even as he stacked two slices atop each other and took a big bite.

“Hey, I like your hair.”

Jeno looked up quickly. There was a boy about his age a few paces away, cross-legged on the floor and leaning against the side of the couch. He had a vest, an oversized long sleeve shirt, freckles, and round apple cheeks.

The deep voice Jeno had heard certainly hadn’t come from the cherub of the boy in front of him. Jeno glanced around.

“I’m Felix,” said the freckled boy, startling Jeno with his ocean-deep voice. “I haven’t seen you at one of these things before. What’s your name? Who do you work for?”

Jeno finished chewing his pizza before he spoke. “Huang. I’m his new secretary, Jeno.”

Felix flashed a sharp smile. “Oh. I guess that means we can’t be friends, then. Because my boss and your boss are enemies, and all that.”

A smile curled onto Jeno’s lips at the other boy’s obvious sarcasm. “Oh? Well, I’d never dream of fraternizing with an enemy.”

Felix snorted. “Taeyong tells us that same thing nearly every day. I think he’s just afraid one of us will fall for someone on Huang’s side and stir up some Romeo-And-Juliet shit. That’s Taeyong for you.”

 _Lee Taeyong_. Jeno felt a small thrill go down his spine. During the car ride from the salon to the hotel, Renjun had debriefed him on exactly who Taeyong was: Renjun’s rival in business, a dangerous man who had as many loyalties as he did nostrils. Two. Himself, and his boyfriend.

 _Don’t even look at his boyfriend the wrong way,_ Renjun had cautioned. _Not saying that mafia bosses are possessive, but we are, and Taeyong_ definitely _is, so it’s best if you lie low. Don’t even think too loud, or he might hear you._

Then Renjun had added, _Also, you’re here at the summit because I can’t risk leaving you at the house when there are people roaming around bent on murdering you. But, you know, since you’re here, feel free to try to make some connections._

Presently Felix tilted his head at Jeno. “So is this your first time at a summit?”

“Yeah.” Jeno nodded. “I guess I thought it’d be more . . . villainous? I don’t know.”

That got a laugh out of Felix. 

He waved an arm at the couch behind him, where there lounged eight other young males, a few of them on their phones and the rest engaged in a competition of who could stack the highest tower of Coke cans.

“Meet the squad,” Felix said. “Huang has a squad too, except it’s all women, and they’re probably a lot brainier than us chumps.” 

_He must be talking about Sana and her sisters_ , Jeno thought.

“Hey, Han Jisung!” Felix stuck his hand into the air and waved it. “Come say hi.”

One of the guys on the couch looked up from his phone. “Yeah?” He noticed Jeno. “Oooh, who is this mysterious new guy?” 

“Come see for yourself,” Felix invited.

When Han Jisung got up he held out his hand at Jeno and Jeno got the sudden panicked feeling that this New Jisung was trying to initiate the complex fist-bump, back-clap Bro Move that Jeno had never learned.

So Jeno fumbled into an awkward high-five. “I’m Jeno. Nice to meet you.” Then, before he could stop himself— “Did you know you’ve got the same name as one of Huang’s door keepers?”

“Do I?” Han Jisung asked. “Not sure about that. I do know that Huang’s lieutenant has the same name as me.”

“Heard his lieutenant got demoted,” Felix said.

 _Park Jisung . . . Huang’s lieutenant?_ Jeno tried to piece it together. _Not just a doorkeeper?_

“Speaking of lieutenants.” Han Jisung turned to cast a critical eye into the room around them. “Wasn’t Yong planning to promote Yeji to that post today? Thought I heard her and Ryujin and the rest of the girls talking about that.”

As if on cue, there came the distinct, persistent noise of someone tapping a fork against a glass. Suddenly, the crowd quieted. 

“Greetings, everyone. At this time I will commence with taking attendance,” announced a thickly accented voice from somewhere Jeno couldn’t see. “If you are present, please respond to your name. Kim, Chungha?”

“Present,” rang a female voice.

“Son, Hyunwoo?” 

“Present.”

“Huang, Renjun?”

“Present,” Renjun called easily.

Attendance continued like this. The calm, steady voice that called out the names had a heavy accent that Jeno couldn’t place.

He shut his eyes briefly. _Clean porcelain bowls of blueberries, crunchy egg rolls, the sharp tang of incense. Foreign syllables that spoke of kindness and kindness and kindness. Lazy Sundays, shining eyes, shy smiles, irreversible grief_ —

“His English is getting better,” remarked Felix, inadvertently pulling Jeno out of his bizarre sensation influx.

Jeno made a note to ask a doctor about it later. Maybe Kunhang would be able to help him.

“I think he still needs a little work,” Han Jisung was saying. “He still has trouble with his R’s. You know?”

“Who are we talking about?” Jeno asked.

“Dongyoung. The guy who’s calling attendance right now,” Felix explained. “He’s Taeyong’s right-hand-man, and a transfer from the New Korean contempire.”

“Taeyong won’t let us speak to him in Korean,” sighed Han Jisung. “Says it’s best if we use English so he can learn. Honestly, I see his logic. Are you monolingual, Jeno?” 

“Jang, Seungyeon?” Dongyoung called. “Nam, Eric?”

“Yeah, I am,” Jeno admitted. He had taken Mandarin classes back in middle school but had retained very little. It was a sore point for him. Chenle excelled at Mandarin and liked to rub it in his face every moment he got.

“Jeon, Somi. Choi, Seungcheol.” 

“It’s fine if you just know English,” Felix assured him. “Only the industry hotshots need to worry about knowing more than that.”

The attendance progressed for several more minutes, until at last, Dongyoung announced that now, Lee Taeyong would take the floor.

Jeno got up and perched on the arm of the couch, trying to get a glimpse of the infamous criminal mastermind.

But there were tall people standing in the way and Jeno couldn’t see anything. As a low, gravelly voice that could have only belonged to Taeyong began to deliver a speech about something that had to do with recent holo-drug business trends, Jeno tried to maneuver through the crowd, ducking past people and trying not to brush arms with them.

He was unused to wearing boots, though, and accidentally sank his heel into someone’s unsuspecting foot. His action elicited a muttered curse. Jeno jumped back, a million apologies on the tip of his tongue, until he looked up into the face of the person he’d bumped into and his mind went blank.

“Who the hell—oh. You.” Ten smiled at him, an opal stud glittering in one of his ears. “Huang’s secretary. Oh my gosh, I love your new hair?”

“ _Ten_ ,” Jeno breathed, rendered unable to say anything else. 

He was face-to-face with his idol.

“Am I that scary?” Ten self-consciously looked down at his own outfit. “I didn’t even wear my scary suit today.”

Some of the people nearby shushed them. But at this point, Jeno couldn’t care less about listening to Lee Taeyong’s speech. “Can I get your autograph?” he asked Ten. “Can I—” He reached in his back pocket for his phone. “Would a photo be okay?”

Ten’s face split into a smile. “Sure, kid.”

A minute later, after migrating over to a more inconspicuous corner of the penthouse, Jeno and Ten had taken three selfies together. Two with both of them giving peace-signs, then one with Ten casually resting his elbow on Jeno’s shoulder. The physical contact left Jeno positively breathless.

“Why are you here at this summit, though, Ten?” Jeno asked, his voice lowered. “Don’t tell me—” His eyes widened. “My theory was right?”

“Your theory.” Ten’s laugh was infectious. “Right. I heard about that.”

“So you’re—you actually _do_ head an underground sex entertainment industry?”

“You’re welcome to stop by the club anytime,” Ten said, with a wink. “But keep it on the down low, alright? People can’t know about it. Or, you know, it wouldn’t really be an underground affair.”

“Right. Yes.” Jeno felt dizzy. Ten’s arm was still resting on his shoulders. Could this be a dream? 

There was a chorus of applause from the rest of the penthouse as Taeyong wrapped up his speech. Someone else took the floor, this time about new strides in tech development of the Dark Net.

Jeno searched for Renjun in the crowd and saw that he was standing apart and with one hand in his pocket. Almost as if he had sensed Jeno looking at him, his gaze flicked over to him, and Jeno saw the surprise that rose in his eyes at the sight of Ten there. 

“How’s Renjun treating you?” Ten asked. “Being his usual stickler self?”

“Yes,” Jeno said. “Wait, how are you on a first-name basis with him? I thought he only used last names.”

“I do it to annoy him.” Ten grinned. “Although I doubt it really works. From my experiences with him, he sorta seems like an android—nothing gets under his _skin_.”

“He’s coming over.”

“Indeed he is.”

A few people nearby turned to watch as Renjun approached the two of them, his pace leisurely, now with both of his hands in his pockets.

“How’re you doing, Renjun?” said Ten cheerfully. “Your secretary here is a big fan of mine. He’s _really_ sweet.”

Renjun ignored him, his serious eyes on Jeno as he asked, “Is he bothering you, Lee?” A pause. “If he’s harassing you. . .”

“No! No,” Jeno hurried to say, at the same time Ten laughed, “Why can’t I flirt with my fan in peace?”

 _Flirt?_ Jeno’s heart spasmed. _Flirt. Ten is flirting with me, Ten is flirting with_ —

Renjun’s face darkened at Ten’s words.

“Keep your hands to yourself,” he muttered, and in one motion, shoved Ten’s arm off Jeno’s shoulders.

He hadn’t even spoken all that loudly, but all at once, the penthouse cascaded into a quiet hush. The ongoing speech trailed off. Everyone was looking at them.

Their eyes traveled to Renjun’s hand on Jeno’s wrist.

A murmur rippled through the penthouse.

“That must be the client.”

“I thought Huang made a point of never laying a hand on his employees.”

“Since when does Huang touch his employees?”

“Since when is the client an employee?”

A loud, clear voice broke through the din. “Come on, guys, didn’t you ever learn it’s rude to gossip about someone while they’re right in front of you?”

From this angle in the room Jeno could see from whom it had come: a man, wearing a loose-fitting white button-down that only had one button done. He was sitting on a couch, a can of Coke in his hand and his feet kicked up on the ottoman in front of him. He was eerily, ethereally handsome, all large eyes and dewy skin and sharp jaw that looked like something straight out of an anime. 

“Damn.”

The soft word escaped Jeno’s lips before he could tamp it down.

Laughter flooded the penthouse. Jeno couldn’t bring himself to feel embarrassed. _Why is every criminal here so attractive?_ He cursed his hopelessly bisexual brain.

“쟤가 방금 욕을 했어,” said Taeyong over his shoulder to a man standing nearby. 

“아, 네,” replied the man, who must have been Dongyoung. He regarded Jeno with scrutiny, and when he spoke again, it was in that accented English. “Who . . . are you?”

Before Jeno could answer, Renjun interjected with something in Korean. Jeno pressed his lips together in annoyance at the blatant use of a foreign language used in front of him for a conversation that was obviously about him.

Whatever Renjun said, it made Dongyoung’s eyes grow wide. His head whipped to Taeyong as if seeking clarification.

Taeyong himself looked mildly surprised. He took his feet off the ottoman. “Huang, did you just say he’s your _slave_?”

For a moment, Renjun looked confused. “No, I said that his name is Jeno.”

Tight tension wound through the penthouse.

Then a realization seemed to hit Taeyong and he started to laugh.

“Ah! I see! My God. For a moment there I was really worried.” He shook his head, with an accompanying chuckle. “You didn’t seem like the type to have slaves, Huang, that’s all.”

He turned to give Dongyoung a rapid-fire explanation in Korean, at the end of which Dongyoung too was cracking up.

“I don’t get it,” Jeno whispered to Ten. “What’s going on?”

Ten had a hint of a smile on his face. “Renjun used Korean to introduce you to Dongyoung, but the phrases ‘he is my slave’ and ‘he is Jeno” sound identical in Korean. _Jenoyeyo_ versus _je noyeyo_.”

“Comedy gold,” Taeyong agreed, facing Jeno again. “Anyway, Jeno. Are you the client from the shooting yesterday?”

The question struck Jeno. Had the event really only happened yesterday? It felt like weeks since he had stood on the street outside of his apartment and squeezed that trigger.

_Bang. Bang._

“That’s me,” Jeno said, and felt glad when his voice didn’t quaver.

A ripple of murmurs through the crowd. Jeno noticed Yeri in her rainbow sweater, regarding him with a new look in her eyes. Felix and Han Jisung traded whispers to each other from the couch that Jeno had left.

“So, Huang.” Once the chatter died down, Taeyong turned his focus on Renjun. “Tell me how you’re going to make sure a fiasco like yesterday never happens again.”

“I would hardly call it a fiasco,” Renjun said, choosing his words delicately.

“Oh? You’ve landed yourself on the SKS hit list, and you don’t think it’s a big deal?”

“For now, I’m keeping Jeno and his immediate family under my custody,” Renjun said, and Jeno was impressed by how smoothly he talked, even with all of the people in the room zeroed in on his every word. The pressure couldn’t have been easy. “This whole thing will blow over in a week or two.”

Taeyong considered that. Then— 

“Did you phone the police to collect the bodies?”

Jeno thought of the corpses of the people he’d killed, just strewn out on the sidewalk. Involuntarily he shuddered.

“No,” Renjun said, but his tone betrayed wariness. “The police are usually good about cleaning up.”

Taeyong shook his head. “Operation Phoenix is still underway, Huang. You never know what could happen.” He snapped his fingers and a girl with a high ponytail hurried up to him. “Yeji, please phone Lisa Manoban—right now, yes, right here. We need to make sure this is under control.”

“Everything is under control,” Renjun said.

The penthouse didn’t seem so sure. Restless whispers snuck through the crowd, whispers that grew louder and more persistent. Jeno caught worried expressions and whiffs of the conversations: _Operation Phoenix. Operation Phoenix._ Yeji, the ponytail girl, ducked away with a phone in her hand, speaking rapidly into the receiver.

“What’s Operation Phoenix?” Jeno asked Ten.

“The main reason why we’re gathered here for this summit,” Ten sighed. “I guess Taeyong finally decided to fucking acknowledge it.”

“But what _is_ it,” Jeno pressed, before he was interrupted by Renjun raising his voice to address the penthouse as a whole.

“Everyone calm down. Operation Phoenix is not something we need to worry about. That is official federal business. And what are we? We are gutter rats. Gutter rats wearing expensive clothes, sure, but in the end, we are criminals and we stay in our lane.”

“Our lane?” It was a man near the farther end of the room, wearing a white blazer. “I hear rumors that the feds are cutting deals with some dirty players. They’re infringing on _our_ lane. Nowhere is safe.”

There was a rustle of agreement from the crowd. Renjun raised his hand to quiet them. 

“Those are just rumors, Kim Minseok,” he said. “Besides, the feds are feds. Since when do they dabble in our business? Since never.”

“Wait, what dirty players are they talking about?” broke in a new voice, this one belonging to a short woman with bangs and a black choker necklace.

“Choi Yoojung,” Renjun greeted her. “I doubt there is anything to fear. . .”

On and on this went, random people calling out objections, Renjun responding by acknowledging their full name and countering whatever statement they brought up. It was impressive, Renjun’s steady calm, even as the crowd grew more and more agitated.

“Who are the feds?” Jeno asked Ten. 

“Short for federals,” was the reply. “The government.” 

Jeno chewed his inner lip. He had never once been afraid of the government in his life, but that had been before all of . . . _this_ had happened. Renjun. Mafia. Vantablack uniforms.

“Lisa picked up!” shouted Yeji, now standing atop a chair to make herself seen. “Quiet down or you won’t get to hear what she said.”

That worked to shut the crowd up. Yeji cleared her throat and continued.

“Lisa and the other three sheriffs testified,” she said. “That none of them nor any of the officers at the station ever even got a notification that there were bodies to collect.”

As immediately as it had quieted, the summit roared back into protest.

“So you mean they’re still on the street?” shouted Yoojung above the clamor.

Minseok shook his fist in the air. “I told you! The feds are striking back! They’re working with the SKS! Huang’s only made the problem worse!”

“You idiot,” Renjun shot back, “The SKS is the least public-friendly organization under the roof of criminal organizations. It wouldn’t last a chance against a government that’s at least partially devoted to public safety—”

“You’re just trying to cover up your mistake!”

“What’s Operation Phoenix?” Jeno hissed to Ten.

“Zombies,” Ten murmured gravely. “Just. Zombies.”

“ _What?_ ”

“It’s more possible than you’d think.”

“ _SILENCE!_ ” roared Taeyong above the noise. “Who cares if we’re gutter rats? We’re going to be fucking _organized_ gutter rats. I won’t have chaos at a summit!”

Reluctantly the crowd quieted.

Someone ventured to break the silence: “Did Lisa say the bodies have gone missing?”

The penthouse looked to Yeji.

“She . . . she didn’t _not_ say that,” Yeji hedged.

A chorus of muttered swear words throughout the crowd. 

Taeyong raised his arms. “I get it. This situation looks shitty. And yes, it’s all because of Huang. Let’s hate on him at a later date, though, so that we can get all of this messiness out of the way first? You guys with me? I want no one to panic, no one to go do something reckless. Huang, I know you don’t take orders, but you _have_ to get a handle on this situation. Understand?” 

_Zombies_ , Jeno thought, again and again. _What the hell? Zombies?_

“Understood,” Renjun replied. He met Taeyong’s eyes, then the gazes of everyone watching him. “I understand.”

Taeyong released a heavy sigh, then slumped down back into his couch. The man beside him quietly slipped an arm around his shoulders in a sign of practiced intimacy.

“Meeting adjourned,” Taeyong announced wearily. “Leave, please.”

And just like that, the summit was over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today the irl Renjun turns 20 years old (internationally-wise)(Korea-wise he's 21 lol) and I just wanted to say that I love him so so much and I want to thank him for being the talented, hardworking, adorable, funny, sarcastic little devil that he is. Luv u Renjun!! Mwah mwah!!
> 
> Btw the stuff about Jeno's name in Korean sounding remarkably similar to the world "slave" in Korean is actually true lmao it's 제노예요 "he is Jeno" vs 제 노예요 "he is my slave". What adds to the confusion and makes it even funnier is how k-netizens tend to not put spaces between their words lol
> 
> other translation for stuff that yong and doyoung said in this chapter:  
> taeyong: 쟤가 방금 욕을 했어 (that guy just cursed)  
> doyoung: 아, 네 (oh, i see)
> 
> Y'all remember, pls stay safe, wash ur hands, take good care of yourselves, don't skip meals :) 
> 
> ~ Yerin 032220


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dear my beta 도토리: I love you and every single one of your comments about sourdough Wholefoods turkey sandwiches.
> 
> C/W: In this chapter there’s descriptions of some heavy topics, including verbal and physical domestic abuse. It starts at “Jaemin prayed” and ends at “put your weapon down.” 

The summit had gone horribly.

Renjun had several solutions for when social events went poorly, and his favorite was to play music that most people would deem noise, in hopes of distracting himself from unnecessary thoughts. 

On the car ride with Jeno back to the mansion, Renjun instructed his chauffeur to place the radio on the hip-hop station and turn it up to its loudest setting. Then he reclined back into his seat, slung an arm over his face, and tried his best to take a nap.

After a quarter hour or so, he distantly heard Jeno ask the chauffeur to turn the radio off. A moment later, silence filled the car. Renjun cursed Jeno’s ridiculously charming crescent-eyed smile—it was probably what had persuaded the chauffeur to comply with his request.

“. . . just so he can sleep,” he heard Jeno’s voice. “I wanted it quiet.”

“Alright, sir,” came the chauffeur’s response.

“Please don’t call me that,” Jeno said. Renjun could hear his smile in his voice. “Just Jeno is fine.”

“Alright, sir.”

Jeno laughed. 

Renjun did not. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in such a bad mood. The summit had been nothing short of a catastrophe, and what he needed to do right now was focus on strategizing ways to fix his mistake of being less than careful with the aftermath of the serial killer attack on Jeno’s house. But how was he supposed to focus when there was Jeno? Renjun just _couldn’t_ start thinking about how things between him and Jeno had changed.

Not that Jeno had any idea they had changed. It was entirely one-sided.

It also had everything to do with the basketball doodles he’d seen on Jeno’s paperwork earlier that day.

Absently Renjun’s hand went up to finger his necklace pendant, rubbing his thumb against its circular surface.

_Ah, Jeno, what will I do with you?_

“. . . Boss, are you awake?”

“Hmm?” Renjun didn’t open his eyes. “What is it? You still hungry?”

Jeno fidgeted in his seat, picking at the edge of his seat belt. “No, I just . . . Are you in trouble because I shot those serial killers?”

Renjun wanted to laugh. “Am I in trouble?” _Damn right I am._ “You could say that,” he finally said.

Jeno bit his lip. “What do you think happened to the bodies?”

“That’s none of your concern.”

After a moment, Renjun internally cursed himself for speaking too soon—because of course it was Jeno’s concern, he was the catalyst of this entire situation. Not only that, but if Jeno was going to be a permanent involvement in Renjun’s world of crime, Renjun needed to stop treating him like any average person. He wasn’t a client. He was his secretary. He needed to be someone Renjun could rely on.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” Jeno ventured. “But boss, I think it’s important for me to know what’s going on. It doesn’t seem like all of those important people in the penthouse would have gotten so riled up over something that wasn’t worth being concerned about.”

Renjun opened his eyes. 

He took in Jeno’s appearance, his form-fitting black turtleneck and ink-black jeans. His peroxide blond hair was parted down the middle and had the addition of an undercut. The whole ensemble all looked very _badass_ , which Jeno’s face entirely contrasted—his expression was earnest and open and he honestly looked like he wanted to try his best to support Renjun through whatever shit he was going through.

 _A teddy bear in a Halloween costume. That’s Jeno_. Renjun cleared his throat. “Lee, do you know what a phoenix is?”

Jeno tilted his head. “Wouldn’t that be a place in Arizona?”

Renjun pressed a button on his armrest and a soundproof wall slid up between them in the backseat and the chauffeur up front. “Sure. However, it’s also a mythical animal.”

Jeno snapped his fingers. “Right. The ashy and firey thing.”

“Yes. So.” Renjun cast about for a suitable explanation, and turned up empty-handed. The best way to get the words out was to just get them out. “The New American government has figured out a way to reverse the effects of death.”

Silence.

“What.”

“Exactly. When I heard about Operation Phoenix, I just . . . I couldn’t believe it either. Reviving humans from the afterlife through the use of scientifically dubious methods, all of which involve excessive amounts of radiative treatment? What are we living in, a crossover universe of supernatural and science fiction?” Renjun shook his head. “It’s the least sane thing I’ve heard of in my two decades alive on this planet.”

Jeno was quiet for a long time. He searched Renjun’s face as if gauging to see if he was telling the truth. Then he looked out the car window toward the scenery flooding by them: residential skyscrapers in diligent tones of denim gray, cow’s-eye gray, and purplish gray. It was early evening, sunlight bouncing off of holo-billboards constructed entirely of intricate formations of tiny drones. High overhead, the small figure of a business jet sailed a serene path through the sky, belying the speed at which it was actually traveling.

These days, jet tickets were available at a relatively low price to anyone whose daily commute merited that sort of distance travel. The average American citizen was no stranger to riding in vehicles fast enough to break the sound barrier.

“Necromancy, but scientific,” Jeno finally said, with an exhaled sigh. “Okay. Why not?”

“Well, according to my intel in the Pentagon,” Renjun said, “the government’s aim is to one day mobilize the undead as military brawn, so that they won’t have to utilize living humans to fight wars.”

“Wait, but do the dead people come back as, like, all zombie-like?” Jeno asked. “Or are they the same way they were when they were alive?”

“Logic says that the government would want a mixture of both. Soldiers who can take orders but don’t have a mind of their own.”

Jeno rubbed his temples. “Don’t tell me they’ve figured out a way to make that happen.”

“Here’s the tricky part.” Renjun drummed his fingertips against the leather of the car seat below him. “These days, the vast majority of the world prefers to cremate their dead. And, while it’s called Operation _Phoenix_ , I doubt that it’s possible to literally resurrect a person’s body from their ashes.”

“Which means,” Jeno said slowly, “that the feds are looking for corpses that haven’t been cremated.”

“Precisely.”

Renjun could see it falling together in Jeno’s head: the SKS, the clamor at the summit, the aftermath of the serial killer attack on Jeno’s own house.

“So you’d understand,” Renjun said, “why there’s talk that the SKS is actually partnering with the feds.”

“Wait, what?”

“To provide corpses for them.”

“ _What?_ ”

“Ludicrous. I know. But the SKS reaps the largest death toll out of the plethora of worldly criminal organizations, so it makes sense that they’d jump at a chance to make some buck out of their victims. And I know it might sound blasphemous and irrational that the New American federal government would even consider condoning the services of a criminal organization to further its agenda . . . but no one’s ever as upright as they seem.”

“Oh God.” Jeno gnawed at the inside of his cheek. “Oh . . . God.”

“In the case that the rumors are true—the bodies of the serial killers you shot yesterday? They’d be missing because the government has come by to collect them. I suppose the feds don’t care if it’s the serial killer victims or the serial killers themselves, they just want the bodies.”

“That’s two more zombies to add to the undead army,” Jeno murmured.

“Indeed.”

Silence in the car. 

“Do you think Joo Geum sold my brother’s body to the government?” Jeno asked, his voice low, his eyes wide in fear. “Is Mark a—a . . . ?”

“A pawn of the federal freak science experiment?” Renjun paused to think. “It’s not unlikely.”

Jeno let out a low groan, leaning forward and tearing his hands through his hair. “No . . . no . . . _Mark_ . . .”

“I’ll ask Dejun to look into it,” Renjun said. “He’s got a contact in the Pentagon. There’s a chance he can check if your brother’s name shows up on any of the science records there.”

A shaky breath. Jeno pulled himself upright. “That’s . . . Yes. Thank you.”

The car rolled to a stop. They’d reached the mansion. The chauffeur climbed out of the driver’s seat and, when he swung open the back door for Renjun, a swarm of summer temperatures entered the car.

“You’ve arrived, boss.”

“Thank you, Byeongkwan,” Renjun said, stepping out of the car. “Please be ready for another trip in a few hours since I’ve got an eight o’clock with the LAPD today.”

“Alright, boss.”

Jeno hurried to keep up with Renjun’s brisk pace into his mansion’s rose gardens. 

“I’ll make sure to keep you safe from the SKS,” Renjun said, as they walked. “You and your brother both. Even your boyfriend, if you want.”

“Jaemin’s not . . .”

“Not your boyfriend?”

Jeno shrugged. 

Renjun narrowed his eyes. “Help me out.”

“He isn’t really,” Jeno said. “I mean, sometimes we pretend to be. When we go out to the mall, or places, I’ll hold his hand and stuff. Just to keep creeps from staring at his ass. But no, he and I aren’t . . . a _thing_.”

“Alright,” Renjun said airily, not quite sure why he felt gladdened. “Well, you seem to be fond of him, so please let him know that my custody policy extends to him as well. I assure you, my estate is quite secure. It has a built-in alarm system on every window and door, you’d need eight keys to enter even the hospital ward, and each member of my nonet squadron holds black belts in Taekwondo—you don’t have to worry about intruders breaking into our space.”

“Sana and her sisters are black belts in Taekwondo?”

“They are.”

“That’s really cool,” Jeno said. “But—that’s not what I’m worried about.”

“What is it then?”

“Like. I don’t know. Sure, my family and I will be kept safe, but like, what about the rest of the world? How are they going to find protection against serial killers like—like the ones who killed my brother? How are they going to defend themselves against turning into zombies?”

“That’s precisely what my appointment with the LAPD is going to discuss later today,” Renjun said grimly as they headed past hedges of roses so brilliantly red and dripping with diamonds that he wondered how Jeno could ever had mistaken them for average flowers. “You’ll see.”

###

_At first, it took Jeno two weeks to warm up to Jaemin._

_“Isn’t this too much to learn at once?” he whined in one sun-dusted morning at the library, his head in his hands._

_“Jeno, this is just a quarter of the chem curriculum you missed while at your away game yesterday.” His tutor prodded him with his pencil. “Come on.”_

_“But Jaemin . . .”_

_“But Jeno . . .” Jaemin mimicked, with the same tone of voice._

_Jeno looked up. Jaemin reached into his bag and pulled out a white-walled tupperware container. He pushed it over the table at him._

_“Brain food.”_

_Jeno opened it. A perfect souffle pancake sat inside, with two raspberries and a line of chocolate syrup forming a big smiley face._

_“Dork,” Jeno laughed. He picked the raspberries up and rearranged the face into a frowny one. “There.”_

_Jaemin swatted his arm. “Stoppit. Eat up. You probably didn’t have breakfast this morning.”_

_Jeno sighed, but he obediently picked up the pancake and took a bite. “Did my brother tell you to look after me? Because you know you don’t have to.”_

_“What if I want to?” Jaemin offered him a smile._

_Jeno didn’t know what to say. The only people on Jeno’s side in the entirety of the world had always just been Mark and Chenle. Family ties were true ties. Friendships weren’t trustworthy._

_But Jaemin’s smile told him that Jeno might have had it all wrong._

###

It was early evening, and the sun was grazing the horizon, casting everything in a strange limbo of deep orange light and long shadows. The contempire was settling in for the night—except for Jaemin, who had a long night ahead of him. He walked down the street, his cap pulled low over his head.

Everything in the way Jaemin saw the world seemed to have changed from just a few days ago. Now, he found himself tensing at every car horn, every loud noise. The LA contempire had never been a safe place, but apart from a few petty muggings, Jaemin had never seen it as a _bad_ place—had never been at the receiving end of the city’s cruelty.

Not until the shooting yesterday.

He walked faster, avoiding people as they passed him by. Most of them looked like he did: small, inconspicuous, trying to blend in. Momentarily he wondered where they were headed to. What their lives were like. Jaemin never let himself forget that every person in this world had a life just as complex as his own.

Tonight, the location for Ten’s strip club looked relatively unassuming, if not for the incessantly loud music coming from it that could be felt thrumming in vibrations through the sidewalk as Jaemin approached it. Also, there was a line to enter. _Is that normal?_ Jaemin wondered.

The bouncer at the club door greeted Jaemin with a brusque nod and an outstretched palm.

Jaemin suspected the gesture wasn’t a call for a high-five. “I . . . um, I’m not twenty-one.”

The bouncer raised her eyebrows and gestured for him to move out of the way. Jaemin glanced back at the extensive red carpeted queue and saw a crowd of teenage girls, all wearing school uniforms and too-big earrings, at the front of the line. They squealed and headed forward, the club doors opening for them. Behind the doors Jaemin could hear the deep bass of heavy music, accompanied by a dazzling display of magenta light.

Johnny had texted Jaemin the location of the club, plus other details. _Bring something nice to wear. Remember to bring your entrance fee. I’ll be there if you need me._

“You let those girls enter without an ID,” Jaemin said accusingly to the bouncer.

“You don’t need an ID,” was the reply. She waved in a couple wearing matching pink dresses. “You need to pay.”

“They’re not paying.”

“Are you new here, kid? Patrons pay when they leave. Workers need to pay an entrance fee off the bat.”

Jaemin’s eyes widened. “Right. _Right._ Sorry.” He dug into his pockets and pulled out a crinkled fifty. “Is this enough?”

The bouncer took the bill without a word and waved him into the club.

Jaemin fought the urge to roll his eyes as he walked in. For all he knew, the entrance fee could have been ten dollars, and he would have been none the wiser.

The only thing he really knew about strip clubs was how their operations were centered on the strippers themselves: strippers paid to use the club, paid the club a share of their earnings, tipped the waitresses and dee jays, and got to keep the rest of what they earned.

The activities in Ten’s strip club depended on the nature of the venue, which changed every night. Tonight was pole-dancing. Magenta lasers skidding across the ceiling, a bar serving various illegal alcohols, and then several miniature stages in which a pole stood in a puddle of spotlight as its designated dancer seduced the small crowd of patrons in front of them. 

Jaemin found himself watching one of the dancers. Their gender wasn’t clear, and their outfit and haircut was equally ambiguous, but it seemed that gender didn’t play a role in how attractive one could be.

The dancer was elegance in motion, all hips and shoulders and coy facial expressions. Their nimble fingers worked easily with their stripper pole, lending them the strength to cling onto it without any visible effort. It was nothing short of incredible: they struck a pose with the splits, then a pose upside-down, stomach bared, their feet resting delicately on their own head as they gave someone in the audience a glittering wink.

The crowd applauded, applauded—the person that the dancer had winked at reached forward to place several cash bills at the foot of their pole. 

Some of the stations were empty, their dancers occupied by the task of chatting with the patrons. Jaemin spotted a particular dancer with long tumbles of brown hair and a dress of pale gold. A champagne glass glinted in her hand and she wore an indulgent, understanding smile that was why the patron in front of her looked so excited to be talking with her. 

“Jaemin! You made it.” There was a clap on his shoulder.

It was Johnny, wearing a suit and red tie. He smiled at Jaemin. “I’ll take you to the locker rooms so you can get changed.”

“Sure,” Jaemin said, letting Johnny lead him away. “Do I get my own pole?”

“That depends.” Johnny opened a door near the corner of the club and ushered him into a hallway. “Do you know how to use one?”

The corner of Jaemin’s mouth tugged up into a smile. “Sure I do.”

Johnny cast him a questioning look. “You mean, you’ve done it before?”

 _Yes_. 

It was a long story. 

Back in sophomore year of high school, Jaemin had nursed a small crush on an upperclassman boy who came to all of his baking competitions and sought him out after the show to congratulate him. One day the boy invited him to watch him perform at the school gymnastics team showcase.

Jaemin’s jaw had positively dropped when, at the showcase, the upperclassman boy pole-danced center stage, as if there was nothing to it. Later, he’d peppered the boy with questions—like _how did pole-dancers even stay up?_ —and soon enough he was giving Jaemin private lessons with the pole after school. 

It had gone on for the better part of a year, before Jaemin’s parents found out and forbid him from dancing.

 _What are you, a slut?_ his mother had demanded. _No. I don’t want you ever meeting with that boy again._

“It’s like gymnastics on a vertical platform,” said Jaemin presently, using the same words of the upperclassman when he had first explained pole-dancing to Jaemin. “I have some experience.”

“Alright,” Johnny said. “Glad to hear it.” At the far end of the corridor were several doors, each a locker room for a different gender identity. He gestured to Jaemin to pick one of them. “Get changed. Be quick. I’ll be waiting.”

Jaemin entered the one marked Male. After a couple minutes he came back out, dressed in a pair of tight-fitting pants, a mesh sleeveless tee, and a flatteringly baggy jacket in a shade of midnight blue. He’d kept the ensemble in his bag for the walk to the club.

Johnny gave him an appraising look and a nod of approval, then led him back toward the club’s main room.

They threaded their way past patrons, past dancers. There was an unoccupied pole in the corner of the room.

“If anyone tries to bother you,” Johnny said, coming to a stop near the pole, “let me know straight away. I’ll get them kicked out. No one is allowed to sexually harass you or touch you in any way that you do not permit.”

“Got it,” Jaemin said, with no small amount of gratitude. “Thanks.”

Johnny left, clapping Jaemin’s shoulder as a farewell.

Jaemin stretched his arms, legs, and chest, eyeing the pole the whole time. He trusted himself not to have forgotten how to move. His body would still remember. 

Bodies didn’t forget.

“Are you about to dance?” said a voice. Jaemin whipped around. A patron was standing there, her hands in her pockets, a faint smile on her face. “You’re getting ready, right?”

“Yeah,” Jaemin said, trying not to show how surprised he was at already receiving attention before even getting onto the pole. “Yeah, sure, I’ll dance.”

He shook out the tension in his shoulders and stepped into the ring of spotlight. The music that was currently rolling through the speakers was set at a medium tempo and had a blessedly strong bass that Jaemin found himself easily gravitating to.

 _How do you guys not fall off the pole?_ sophomore-Jaemin had asked his upperclassman crush, mesmerized.

 _It’s all in the skin_ , said the upperclassman. _Gives you grip._

Jaemin took a deep breath.

He started slow. Feeling the music, letting him relax into the vibe. Dancing had never come easy to him—he was too self-conscious, too internalized. The last time he had danced . . . it had been with Jeno at high school prom, in the low-lit waltzing hush of the gymnasium, but the two of them had been more whispering to each other and laughing than actually dancing. 

_Jeno_. 

Jaemin was strip-dancing to make money. Because Jeno needed money.

 _But let’s have a little fun while we’re at it,_ Jaemin thought.

He shouldered out of his jacket, tossed it to the side—the patron whistled.

Mid neck-roll, Jaemin shot her a roguish grin. He tugged at the hem of his shirt, pulling it upward while doing body rolls all the while. Body rolls, body rolls, body rolls . . . Jaemin had forgotten how good it felt to move his body.

A few more patrons joined the first one, watching Jaemin with interested gazes. _Enough with the preamble_ , Jaemin thought, catching the hem of his shirt between his teeth, and swung himself up onto the pole.

Balance found him swiftly. The pole was cool to the touch, reassuring underneath Jaemin’s fingers. He hauled himself upward, upward, until he was at the very top.

 _You got this, Jaemin._ He swung his legs up, elevated them to perfect angles, and he rotated gently on the pole, held there by the grip of his palms. He struck a pose, then hooked the pole with the inside of one of his knees and quickly swung himself upside-down. 

Another thing he’d forgotten about pole-dancing: how _exhilarating_ it felt to be suspended midair and upside-down. Jaemin released his teeth hold on his shirt, stretched his arms backward and let the shirt fall off him and flutter to the floor. 

A chorus of applause. Encouraged, Jaemin struck another pose. By now the music was throbbing through him, rhythm thickening his blood, his vision a haze of gold and adrenaline. 

_Dance, Jaemin. Dance._

And so he danced.

###

The crowd received Jaemin _very_ well.

By the time Jaemin had stripped his way through just five songs, the stage below his pole was littered with fresh cash, and he’d gathered a large following. At some point in his performance, he’d partially descended from the pole to accept a hundred-dollar bill from a patron eagerly waving it at him—he’d taken the money between his teeth, flashed her a provocative wink, and then went right back to dancing. 

He wasn’t sure of how long his performance lasted, just that it was full of charisma and grace and sexuality. His hair and body were slick with sweat by the time he decided it was time to descend from the pole.

Reluctantly the crowd dispersed, but a few people lingered back, hoping to snag a conversation or two with Jaemin. There was a sealed bottle of water near the edge of the stage for Jaemin, which he drank about half of, before turning to his patrons with a ready smile.

The evening progressed without Jaemin noticing. He liked getting to meet new people, getting to hear their life stories. Johnny had been right when he’d told Jaemin that work in a strip club was pretty pedestrian—other than his initial pole-dance, Jaemin didn’t dance much more, preferring to just chat with the patrons and listen to what they had to say.

They weren’t creeps. A lot of them, Jaemin found, actually came to night clubs like this one because they were lonely or bored. They wanted something exotic, erotic, something _new_. A refresher from the boring 9-to-5 office schedule that they had spent their whole lives barricaded by. 

Business slowed down at around eight p.m. It was when customers would be out getting dinner. Jaemin took advantage of the lull to put his shirt back on, drink some more water, count his cash, and seek out some of the other strippers in the club, interested in knowing their stories as well.

The brunette woman with the pale gold dress went by Solar. She said she’d been stripping for a few months now as a way to pay the bills. 

There was a man named Jackson, who cracked jokes lewd beyond imagination. Jaemin countered with a few good quips of his own, to which Jackson howled in laughter and beckoned for one of his friends to come over.

It was another stripper, also male and older than Jaemin. He had full, plump lips and wore silver contact lenses paired with heart-shaped glasses that had no lenses.

“This is Bambam.” Jackson introduced him to Jaemin. “Bam, this is Jaemin. A rookie, and a damn talented one at that.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jaemin said. He wondered if he’d seen Bambam someplace before. He looked awfully familiar.

“Jaemin?” Bambam’s face split into an enormous smile. “ _You_! Baker boy! Oh my God!”  
Jaemin was confused for a moment, before his eyes opened wide and he nearly shrieked. “ _Kunpimook?_ ”

“Bro!” Bambam seized him in a fierce hug. “Fuck, it’s been forever, man. How’ve you been? Still baking? Graduated high school? Living your best life? I never even though I’d be seeing you at this joint—”

“Me too,” laughed Jaemin, patting Bambam on the back. “Although I mean, you were always destined for dancing.”

Jackson cut in. “Hold on, hold on. You two know each other already?”

Jaemin and Bambam faced him, wearing matching smiles with their arms around each other. “Went to the same high school,” Bambam said, his voice carrying no small amount of pride. “I’m the one who taught him how to pole-dance.”

The upperclassman, the center of the school gymnastics team. “I guess you go by Bambam now,” Jaemin surmised.

“Yep. It’s more customer-friendly.” Bambam grinned at him. “Want a drink? Let’s catch up, bro.”

Jaemin was already shaking his head. “Sorry, but it’s getting late. I gotta scram.” He wanted to get back to Huang’s mansion, check up on Chenle, make sure Jeno was doing okay and hadn’t overdosed on caffeine in the time that Jaemin hadn’t been by his side.

“Next time, then, kid,” Jackson said, bumping Jaemin’s shoulder with his own. “Make sure you stop by Ten’s office in the hallway before you leave. His policy is he takes twenty percent of your share tonight.”

“Got it.” Jaemin gave Bambam once last friendly smile, then turned in the direction of the office. 

As he headed off, he could hear Bambam excitedly talking to Jackson. “Can you believe it? That kid is like my son. I practically raised him. He’s all grown up now!”

“Yeah, yeah, Bam,” Jackson laughed. “Alright, we should get back to work.”

Jaemin chuckled to himself as he ducked into the hallway. His crush on Bambam was no more, fizzled away long ago since after Bambam graduated, and it didn’t come as a surprise that he’d only ever seen Jaemin as a younger family member. After all, half the time they’d spent together at school, Jaemin had suspected Bambam of only hanging out with him because Jaemin brought him baked treats every once in a while.

Ten was at his desk, dressed in a navy suit with spectacles and practicing calligraphy when Jaemin opened his office door. 

“Hi,” Jaemin said. “Uh. Twenty percent, right?”

“Huh?” Ten looked up. “Yes. Twenty.”

Jaemin dug into his bag, where he’d stashed his earnings. Quickly he did the math in his head, counted out the proper amount, and held two fistfuls of neatly stacked cash at Ten.

Ten set down his calligraphy brush, his eyes wide in disbelief. “That . . . that can’t be your twenty percent.” 

“Is it not enough?” Jaemin re-counted the bills. “No, I’m sure it is.”

“Goddamn,” Ten said. He held out his hand. “Holy shit. This has got to be a new record. You’re a _hit_ , kid. Please tell me you’ll make this your presence here a regular occurrence.”

Jaemin grinned, feeling no small amount of relief. “Thanks. Thank you. Sure, I’ll definitely be back soon.”

He left Ten’s office and exited the nightclub with a jaunt in his step. All the cash in his backpack . . . it made him feel powerful.

Summer heat clung to his silhouette as he headed down the street back in the direction of Huang’s mansion. 

###

_“Guys, look.”_

_Jeno and Jaemin looked up from the computer at the same time. They were sitting next to each other together on Jeno’s bed the way they did lately, and there was no space between them except for enough room to fit Jeno’s cat who was asleep in the cozy, warm nook between Jeno and Jaemin’s hips._

_Mark hovered at the entrance of Jeno’s room._

_“What are we supposed to be looking at?” Jaemin asked._

_“I . . .” Mark paused. “Remember that boy I told you I was seeing?”_

_Something changed in Jeno’s demeanor. He narrowed his eyes and lifted his head from where his cheek had been resting on Jaemin’s shoulder. “Uh-huh. The one you bought flowers, two nights ago.”_

_“Yeah.” Mark laughed. “Uh. So_ —”

_“Oh, come on, Mark, can’t I meet them already?” whined a voice, and then someone was squeezing into the room._

_He wore an orange T-shirt and had a dark brown mullet. He straightened up_ — _his amber eyes swept the room and landed on Jeno and Jaemin. “Oh! They’re twins? You didn’t say Chenle and Jeno were twins.”_

_Mark laughed. “No, no. The one on the right is Jeno. The one on the left is his best friend, Jaemin. They do act like twins a lot, though. Chenle’s out in the yard, playing basketball.”_

_“Jaemin and I don’t act like twins,” Jeno said, self-consciously reaching up to scratch the back of his neck, coincidentally at the same time that Jaemin reached up to scratch the back of his own neck too._

_They traded equally confused expressions._

_The cat between them stirred, purred, and poked her head up. Jeno patted the top of her head. “Shh, Bong Bong, it’s okay. It’s still nap time.”_

_“I’m Donghyuck,” said the boy in the orange T-shirt. His smile filled his face with sunshine. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”_

###

On Jaemin’s way back home, the holo-phone in his back pocket buzzed three short vibrations. He picked up the call. 

“Hello?”

“Jaemin.” It was his dad. “Jaemin, come home.” Something was wrong with his voice.

“Dad?” Jaemin ducked into an empty alleyway for privacy. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”

“It’s your mom again. Please, son, _please_ come home, we need you here. Your sister and I—”

There was a crash and a scream in the background. Jaemin clutched the phone urgently, his heart racing. “Dad?”

“She—your sister threatened to call the police—and your mom—your mom went—she went ballistic—”

His dad’s words were punctuated with short gasps.

 _Shit_. Jaemin left the alleyway, glancing around for a taxi. “Breathe with me, Dad. Breathe. Are you listening to me? Focus on me.”

“I can’t.” His dad’s voice was tight with terror.“I can’t fix this. Only you know how.”

Jaemin reached out into the street to flag a holo-taxi. “Inhale, Dad. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Now let it out. One, two three, four—”

With the blare of a horn, a motorcycle whipped by. It tried to swerve last minute but failed and ending up knocking into Jaemin’s outstretched arm and sending him staggering several paces. His holo-phone clattered to the street and a car promptly ran over it, crushing it into smithereens underneath its wheel.

“Fuck,” Jaemin breathed.

He looked for the motorcyclist, but they’d already driven off.

Jaemin turned back toward the street and flailed his arms helplessly, hoping to draw attention to himself. “Taxi! Hey! Taxi!”

A moment later, a sleek, automated yellow cab glided up to the curb and invited Jaemin in by cocking one of its doors open. He scrambled inside. 

“Take me downtown. Near the public library.” That was where his parents lived.

The holo-taxi’s steering wheel registered the destination on its small screen. The car started off.

“ _Faster_ ,” Jaemin pleaded, and the bot responded, kicking its engine into overtime as it tore down the street.

###

Jaemin prayed it wouldn’t be too late by the time he arrived at the house. As soon as the taxi came to a stop, he stumbled out of its door, throwing a hasty wad of one-dollar bills down onto the car seat as payment and then running up the front steps.

The front door was unlocked. He barrelled into the house.

The sight that greeted him was worse than what he’d expected.

His dad cowered against a wall, too frightened to move. Jaemin’s younger sister, Lami, was on her feet on the living room couch, her hair loose around her shoulders and her arms spread in front of her, her face full of fear and tears. Their mother’s face was lit with fury as she towered over Lami. A cigarette was clenched between her teeth and in one fist she gripped a half-shattered bottle of beer. In the other fist she held a belt.

“Stop it,” Lami sobbed. “Put it down. Mom, please. Put it down—”

Cigarettes and alcohol were nothing new.

But a belt was.

“You think you can threaten to call the police on me?” shouted their mother. “You ungrateful _bitch_.”

“Mom!” Jaemin rushed over, rage bubbling in his gut. “What are you doing?”

“Jaemin,” Lami choked, turning to him in desperation. “Help me. I think she’s lost it. She’s been drinking all day and she tried to give me a cigarette but when I said no she threw down her bottle and unbuckled her belt and said I was being ungrateful and tried to hit me and she’s definitely fucking _lost_ it—”

The belt came down. Lami screamed, threw her arms over her head—

The hit never reached her.

Jaemin glowered at his mother, his hand wrapped around her raised wrist. His arm shook from the force of resisting hers.

“Stop it.” His voice was low. “You’re better than this.”

His mom spat out her cigarette. “Oh yeah? Think you’re brave?” She jerked her head at his dad. “At least you’re better than that coward. I should have divorced him long ago. I should have left this house. I should have—”

“Cut the bullshit,” Jaemin snapped. “You can raise your voice at us all you like, you can break as many bottles as you want, but I draw the line at hitting us.” He threw her arm down, causing her to stumble a pace backward. “Take a walk. Rent a motel and stay away for the night. Blow off steam like a responsible woman.”

“Na Jaemin.” Her eyes flashed with anger. “You take that back. I am your mother.”

Any other night, Jaemin would have acquiesced. Lowered his head, slunk away, not wanting to make things worse. But maybe it was the cash resting in Jaemin’s backpack, or maybe it was the adrenaline in his veins from dancing, or maybe it was from him being told by so many strangers tonight who praised him and told him he was special and worth something. 

Whatever it was, it filled Jaemin with courage.

“No,” he said to his mom. “For me and Lami and my dad because we all deserve so much better than _you_ and you know it.”

This time, her eyes gleamed not in anger, but in hurt. It was a bad sign. She was the type of woman who took the hurt that other people gave her and magnified it tenfold. She raised her arm, this time the one with the broken bottle, and Jaemin’s eyes widened. Lami screamed—

“LAPD! Put your weapon down!” There were furious footsteps, pounding inside the house, accompanied by the heavy jingle of chains and keys and guns. A pair of female police officers. “This is the Los Angeles Police Department! I repeat, put your weapon down!”

The color drained from Jaemin’s mom’s face. She dropped the bottle, letting it clatter to the floor. In a whirl, one of the officers seized her, yanking her arms behind her back, and there was the fast, sure _click_ of handcuffs being fastened. Jaemin glimpsed the dull shine of silver chains, binding his mother’s wrists.

The other police officer reached Lami and Jaemin, pulling them away from their mother, away from the shards of glass littering the carpet. “Children, are you alright?” She had a long braid of orange hair, and wide, sincere eyes. Her hand gripped Lami’s shoulder. “Are you hurt?”

Jaemin shook his head wordlessly. 

“Thank you for coming.” Lami was shaking so badly it seemed like she might fall over. “Thank you. Thank you. You saved us. Thank you.”

The officer nodded knowingly and pulled Lami into a hug. That was all it took for Lami to dissolve into another round of tears.

One arm around the girl, the officer looked up to see Jaemin’s father, who was still trapped against the wall in terror. “Sir, are you alright?”

When he stammered out a yes, she turned toward her companion, who was beginning to lead Jaemin’s mother toward the door. “Good work, Jisoo. Get her into the car, that’ll do. What are your names, dears?”

It took Jaemin and Lami a moment to realize she was talking to them. They gave their responses hastily.

“Alright, kids. I’m Officer Roseanne Park.” She gave him a smile and a squeeze on his shoulder. “Come with me, hmm? Let’s take you all to the station. We’ll take care of you there.”

###

“Has anyone ever told you that you look very good in black?”

Jeno looked over at Renjun with a surprised look. They were in the limousine again, on their way to the police station for the appointment with Jennie and being driven by Byeongkwan, the stoic chauffeur.

“Um . . .” Jeno trailed off. “I don’t . . . think so?”

The last time Jeno had worn black was at his brother’s funeral, and it was pretty obvious that no one on _that_ day would have made a remark on Jeno’s outfit of all things.

Renjun smiled. “Because you do look good in black. Extraordinarily good.”

“I’m—um. That’s very nice of you to . . . I mean, thanks?” Jeno bit his lip to keep himself from stammering any more.

The mafia leader had been doing this all day: throwing out casual flirtatious comments that made Jeno entirely at a loss of what to say. What could someone even say to that? Coming from anyone else, it might have felt like harassment, but coming from Renjun it felt . . . 

Smooth.

 _Goddamn smooth_ , Jeno thought, sneaking a glance over at Renjun and recalling how Renjun had complimented almost every feature on his face over the course of the afternoon. _What does he want from me?_

He had to have had some sort of ulterior motive. Jeno’s reasoning was simple: the only person who had ever called Jeno good-looking was Mark, but that was because—well, he was _Mark_ , best-big-brother, and he had always made a point of trying to boost Jeno’s self-esteem.

“That salonist did well,” Renjun mused, running his eyes once more over Jeno’s blond hair. “I should add her to the Christmas card list.”

“Do mafia bosses have Christmas card lists?” Jeno murmured to himself.

“I do. But I’m not sure if Lee Taeyong does. I mean, perhaps? He’s the only other person in America who has the same job title as me, but I don’t even know him that well.”

“You mean there’s more than just you and him?”

“I’ve had light correspondence with the mafia leaders in Brazil and Turkey. They’re polite enough.” Renjun shrugged.

Jeno tried and failed to keep himself from analyzing Renjun’s words and the slightly hollow, bitter way he’d said them. It hadn’t gotten past Jeno the understanding that Renjun’s life must be a lonely one. Sure, he had his employees, and Kunhang and Sana and the rest of them all seemed very pleasant . . . but again, Renjun had been barely a teenager when he’d started out in this lifestyle. That didn’t quite leave room for him to have had a childhood.

 _What the hell,_ Jeno thought distantly, gazing out the car window. _Why is it that I’m feeling sympathy for one of the richest, most famous, most successful men on the planet? Does it even matter if he has no friends?_

He still couldn’t shake how much it bothered him. 

He glanced over at Renjun, who was engaged with his holo-phone, a ridiculously expensive gadget with three different screens and a 360 camera. His perfectly coiffed lavender hair, his dark eyes, his calm countenance. . . everything about him looked so put together. Jeno wondered if he ever felt lonely. Did he even have a family?

Renjun caught him staring. Jeno looked away quickly, but the damage was done.

“What is it, Lee?”

“I—uh. Would it be alright with you . . . if I asked you to just call me Jeno?”

Renjun tilted his head a fraction of an angle. A pose that Jeno had seen several times before on his cat when it was curious about something. “Why is that?”

Jeno mustered his best smile. “It’s my name? That’s why.” _Among other reasons._

“I see,” Renjun said. He nodded and leaned back into his chair. “Alright, then. Jeno.”

 _Yay_ , Jeno thought. It was a start.

He wasn’t sure what exactly it was a start for, but it had to be something.

“You’re here, boss,” said Byeongkwan, parking the limousine.

They’d rolled to a stop in front of the police station. It was a three-story building made of sleek black marble walls that boasted the station’s logo: a deep boysenberry-pink plasma heart with the cursive words _LOS ANGELES CONTEMPIRE POLICE DEPARTMENT_ written four times, one line on top of the other, in a satisfying gradience effect.

The police station had the general aesthetic of a wicked Barbie doll house. 

Renjun was already getting out of the car. “Coming, Jeno?”

He didn’t seem the least bit fazed that he, lord of all things unlawful, was about to walk into a literal facility whose sole purpose was the law.

“Yeah,” Jeno said, climbing out of the car as well. The limousine was so long that it stretched almost comically across six parking spaces. “Let’s go in.”

The inside of the station was not incredibly different than the exterior. The walls were jet-black, the carpets were hot pink, and the officers bustling around the place all wore deep navy uniforms with name tags pinned to their chests. There were responders on the phone, their faces drawn in grim expressions, and officers at their desks, going through paperwork with their faces illuminated by the light high-tech holo-computers in front of them. 

Renjun led Jaemin through a crush of officers dragging a half-naked man who thrashed and screamed obscenities.

“They get a lot of crazies in here,” Renjun said, by way of explanation. “The contempire is not tame and does not look it, but you can believe me when I say it’d be a hell of a lot worse without the efforts of the police.”

“Renjun!” trilled a voice. “You’re on time, for once!”

“That I am, Kim,” Renjun said, with an easy smile at the person who’d called out.

Judging by her outfit, she was a higher status than the rest of the other officers around her. She wore a peacoat and pants made entirely out of textured navy leather, and her officer’s cap was the bulky type afforded only to higher-ups. Her lips were glossed in bright pink to match her knee-high boots.

“I’d invite you into my office, but it’s a mess. Come on, let’s just sit here.” The officer waved Renjun over to an empty table that had two vacant chairs. Her gaze strayed to Jeno. “Oh, _damn_ , who’s this? Did you finally get a boyfriend?”

“What?” Renjun took his place in one of the seats. “What makes you think that?”

She sank into the other seat and gave a pointed nail-flick at Jeno. 

“Him? His name is Jeno,” Renjun said. “Jeno, why don’t you pull up a chair?”

There were no nearby vacant chairs. Jeno gave Renjun an apologetic look.

But then, to Jeno’s surprise, the mafia boss stood up and gestured to Jeno to take _his_ chair instead. The police officer made a small noise of curiosity and delight. Wondering why he was blushing, Jeno took the seat. Not long after, Renjun had managed to procure his own chair as well. 

“Meet Jennie Kim, the head of operations here at the LAPD. Mrs. Kim, this is my secretary, Lee Jeno.”

Jeno bobbed his head in a nod. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”

After that, Renjun and Jennie launched into a discussion about Operation Phoenix. Renjun quizzed her on if there was anything she might know that he didn’t about it, and also if Jennie had noticed any bodies going missing around the city in the past few weeks. He asked her if she had plans to implement protective measures. 

The conversation was lengthy. Jeno tried his best to pay attention, but when Renjun and Jennie started incorporating large amounts of jargon into their dialogue, Jeno found himself zoning out, playing with one of the heart-plumed pens lying on the table.

After a while he noticed a lull in the conversation. He looked up from his focus on the pen to see Jennie squinting at him. 

“Yes?” He wondered if he’d missed something.

She turned to Renjun. Her words were fast, and it took Jeno a moment to realize that it wasn’t just jargon—at this point, she’d traded English for Korean.

“No, no, no, no. _Sec-re-tary_ ,” Renjun said, in response to whatever she had said. “Do I need to spell it out for you?”

More excited Korean from Jennie.

“What do you take me for? A cliché?” Renjun rolled his eyes. “Jeno, she’s extremely intent on knowing if I have any interests in you. I think she might want you for herself.”

“I have a _wife_ , Huang!” laughed Jennie, switching seamlessly back to English. “Can’t I just be curious about your love life? All these years, you’ve been the oh-so-solemn bachelor. And now you walk into my station with—with _this_?” She gestured at Jeno. “And you give him your chair?”

“This?” Jeno echoed. 

Jennie snapped her fingers, with no small amount of sass. “I’m sorry to break it to you, honey, but you look like you just walked out of a high-definition, limited-edition Vogue model magazine. With extra photoshop.”

“M-Me?” Jeno’s eyes widened as she nodded vigorously. He looked over at Renjun to check if he was hearing this too. “ _Me?_ ”

“Mrs. Kim, if the other Mrs. Kim heard you saying these things, she’d flay you alive,” Renjun muttered.

Jennie laughed. She looked over at the entrance to the police station. “Jisoo’s out on duty, she would never have to know.”

As if on cue, the doors to the police station slammed open. 

Two female officers strode in, each holding the arm of the sullen captive between them. Jeno’s heart caught in his throat. Jennie popped to her feet with a wave. “Jisoo, honey!” One of the officers waved back at her.

A tall-ish boy was next to enter, followed by a girl and a middle-aged man, each looking various stages of worn-out.

Jeno didn’t even know he’d gotten to his feet, but he heard his upturned chair clattering to the ground behind him. “Jaemin?”

Jaemin turned. His eyes landed on Jeno.

Even from this distance, Jeno could see his eyes were full of tears.

Immediately Jeno was hurtling over the countertop. There were several cries of protest from the officers whose coffee mugs his foot knocked over, but he paid them no mind, vaulting over the final table and barrelling into his best friend with a fierce hug. Jaemin made a small, strangled noise, more of relief than surprise, and leaned into his arms.

Jeno spoke lowly into his ear. “What’s wrong? What happened? Who hurt you?” 

“I finally did it,” Jaemin whispered back. His smile was heavy and tired. “I stood up to her.”

Immediately Jeno knew what he was talking about. “Oh, God. Jaemin, yes.” He leaned back for a moment to reach up and thumb away one of Jaemin’s tears. “That’s . . . You did the right thing.”

Lami spoke up with a sniffle. “Well, Jeno, _I_ was the one who phoned the police.” 

“Were you? Good girl,” Jeno said, reaching out to include her in the hug.

“Kids, we need to see you for questioning,” called a voice that was stern, but not unkind. “Lami and Jaemin?” A pause. “Wait. _Jeno?_ ”

Jeno accomplished an odd shuffled rotation to keep his arms around Jaemin as he spun them both around. The person who’d said his name was one of the two female police officers, her hair in a long orange braid.

Jeno’s coffee shop coworker. “Rose?” he said uncertainly, eyeing her crisp navy uniform. He’d never seen her in anything except her barista apron.

“I’m going to ask you to let go of Jaemin,” said Rose’s companion, Jisoo. “We’re going to ask him some questions about his mom.”

“I’ll take the mother into a holding cell,” said a new officer, this one with ruler-straight bangs. 

“Thanks, Lisa.” 

Jeno did let go of Jaemin, but only partially, letting one of his hands travel down Jaemin’s arm until it reached his hand. He twined their fingers together. “I’m practically his brother. It’ll be fine if you question him with me there, as moral support, right?”

Jisoo looked like she might object, but Rose cut her off. “It’s fine, Jisoo, let it go. I know Jeno. He’s a good kid.”

“Alright,” Jisoo sighed in reluctance. “Come on. Sit down. Let’s talk.”

###

“How long?”

“My whole life, ma’am.”

“Has she ever physically abused you, Jaemin?”

“Tonight was the first time she tried, ma’am.”

“Has she ever threatened to physically abuse you?”

“Yes, she has, ma’am.”

“What kinds of threats would she make?”

“She said she would beat us if we told anyone about how she treated me, my sister, and our dad.”

“Did Jeno know about this, Jaemin? Did she mistreat him, too?”

“She pretended everything was normal when he came over. He knew, though. He tried to tell the high school counselor once, but I stopped him because I was afraid my mom would come after him.”

Jeno squeezed Jaemin’s hand underneath the table. Jaemin was infinitely grateful for his friend’s quiet, reliable presence.

The questioning had gone on for at least an hour by now, and while Rose was gentle and sympathetic in her probing, she was also unfailingly thorough, and Lami and Jaemin’s dad weren’t much help at answering the questions—Jaemin couldn’t imagine sitting through this without Jeno there.

Jaemin squeezed Jeno’s hand back.

Neither of them let go, not even after it was over. 

###

_You’re not prowling, just exploring._

This was what Jisung thought to himself as he prowled around the estate kitchens _._

In truth, he was looking for a bite to eat. The kitchen was a warm, safe space, one of the few places in Renjun’s behemoth of a house that didn’t look like something out of a villain’s lair. The countertops were marbled in pale brown and the light fixtures shed a honey glow—even the lights in the refrigerator were golden, making all the food inside look ethereal.

Jisung shut the walk-in fridge for the third time, then started peeking into nearby spice cabinets. Some of them were large enough to be called closets. One of the employees here around Jisung’s age had spent the better part of the summer playing hide-and-seek with Jisung in the kitchen cabinets. 

But tonight, Yangyang was nowhere to be seen. Likely he was up in his bedroom, poring over schoolwork.

Jisung didn’t like studying, and he didn’t like bedrooms, much less his own. Why have a designated place to sleep when he could sleep in fun, odd places instead? He liked the thrill of waking up in an unfamiliar environment.

 _Chenle probably won’t like it though,_ he thought, pausing in his examination of a can of cinnamon. _He’s up there in the infirmary. When he wakes up he might think he’s been kidnapped._

The thought bothered him. He set the can down, then went back over to the fridge, reaching up to tap his fingernails against the door handle.

Finally he convinced himself to do it. Opened the fridge door and walked straight inside, shutting the door behind him. It was tall enough to fit his lanky body, and spacy to boot. Jisung walked past shelves of orange juice brands and took a turn at the wall of color-assorted vegetables until he reached the staircase that led up into the hospital wing.

With his upper body strength he pulled himself through the trapdoor in the floor and into the infirmary room. It was dark and quiet, Kunhang having headed to his quarters a while ago. 

Jisung tiptoed over to Chenle’s hospital bed. On his way he collected two swivel chairs and a spare pillow. 

Chenle was still fast asleep, his breathing low and even. Jisung pushed the chairs together, used the pillow as a cushion, and laid his long legs down out on the makeshift bed while he pulled out his book to do some reading.

Fifteen minutes passed and he couldn’t get comfortable. He bounced his knee nervously, his holo-phone flashlight shedding light onto the book in his lap. Every once in a while his eyes darted up from the page to rest on Chenle’s sleeping form.

 _I’m not being creepy_ , he consoled himself. _I’m just being caring._

If Renjun heard these thoughts, he would have laughed in Jisung’s face.

Renjun knew well enough Jisung had a bad habit of falling in love too soon, too fast.

 _Not love_ , Jisung reprimanded himself. _It’s not fucking love, it’s friendship. Love doesn’t exist._

That was a lie. He knew love existed. It just didn’t exist for losers like him—losers who let their friends get shot.

He was nodding off in his chair when he heard a small groan, then the rustle of bedsheets. He jerked awake, reaching to turn on the nearby lamp. Pale light flooded the infirmary. “Chenle?”

A vague noise of discomfort, a mumbled word somewhere in the jumble of syllables: “water.”

“Here.” Grateful for Kunhang’s foresight to place a glass of water on the table by Chenle’s bedside, Jisung pressed the cup into Chenle’s hand.

Chenle downed the whole thing, setting it aside as he sat up blearily. 

“You’ve been asleep for a day and a half.” Jisung kept his voice low-pitched and calm, the way he’d seen Kunhang do before. “How do you—”

“Where’s Jeno? And Jaemin?” Chenle seemed to grow alert all at once, his fingers curling in the bedsheets around him. “Are they—”

“They’re okay,” Jisung said, a little impressed at how Chenle’s first coherent words had been about them rather than about himself or his own whereabouts. “They’re fine. Unharmed.”

A couple hours ago, Renjun and Jeno had returned from the police station, Jaemin in tow. Jisung had been surprised to see him with them, and even more surprised when Jeno brought Jaemin up to his quarters. When Jisung asked his boss what had happened and also why Jeno and Jaemin seemed resolutely conjoined at the hands, Renjun had just shrugged and said it’d been a long night and he didn’t care if Jaemin stayed over.

“Wait. Jisung?” Presently, Chenle squinted. “You . . . here . . . why are you . . . huh? Wait. What happened?” He reached up, ran his fingers through his bedhead. “The last thing I remember. . .”

Jisung nodded encouragingly. “What do you remember?”

“Frying pan.” Chenle tilted his head in confusion, his hand still deep in his hair. “I remember a frying pan. I threw one. At this lady. She—had a gun? I think? And—and—ow.” He reached up to gingerly grasp his shoulder, which was wrapped in too many layers of gauze to count. “Ow. Yeah. She definitely had a gun.”

“Oh. Okay,” Jisung said. “Well, that’s sort of badass.”

“That she had a gun?” 

“That you threw a frying pan at a serial killer.”

“I— _what?_ Serial killer?”

Jisung’s heart sank. _He doesn’t know anything. Not anything about the mafia or the serial killers or anything at all._

That meant it was up to him to explain it all.

“Wait, where am I?” Chenle took in his surroundings. “And why are you here? Am I even awake?”

“You are awake.” Jisung shifted nervously. “And well, for the other questions . . . it’s a long story. You’re . . . uh, you’re in the mafia estate? You got shot by a serial killer, so we brought you here to get some medical assistance. I’m . . . I’m here because I, um, work here.”

“Mafia,” Chenle echoed. “The fuck. Mafia? The fuck?”

“I know it’s a lot to take in—”

“Holy _shit_.” Chenle’s eyes went wide. “You work for the mafia. That’s why you went missing so many times during class.”

Jisung felt himself shrink a little. “I try my best not to,” he protested. “I have a pretty good attendance rate.” Yangyang, on the other hand, attended virtually none of his classes, preferring to fool around during the day only to cram all his missed schoolwork in at night. 

“Serial killers,” Chenle whispered, with a sort of awed reverence. “Wow. This is definitely the beginning of my villain backstory. Think about it: normal high school kid gets attacked by random-ass serial killers, becomes supervillain to seek revenge upon them. Yes. _Yes._ ”

“Um,” Jisung said. “The attack wasn’t random. It was actually a revenge case.”

“What? It couldn’t have been. I’ve never wronged anyone in my life.”

He said this with such vehemence that anyone would’ve sensed he was telling the truth.

“Technically, it was a revenge case in response to another revenge case,” Jisung said, waving his arms awkwardly. “They were after Jeno.”

“ _Jeno_? Jeno is a teddy bear. Once he even cried because he stepped on a ladybug.”

“I know, but. . . well. . .” Jisung fixed him with an imploring expression. He hoped Chenle would just put the pieces together and save him the trouble of laying it out. “You know?”

But Chenle shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

That left Jisung wondering what to say next. He cast about. What had been Jeno and Chenle’s older brother’s name, again? Michael? Macintosh?

He snapped his fingers. “Mark.”

He hadn’t expected for the temperature in the room to drop several degrees. Chenle visibly stiffened. 

“How do you know my brother?”

“Jeno came in with a request one day to get Mark avenged.” Jisung didn’t know how else to put it. He spread his hands in defeat. “The boss did what he asked. Turns out Jeno’s target had allies who went after you to get payback.”

Chenle paled. “Payback? Allies? _Target_?”

“Yeah,” Jisung said. “Jeno asked that the boss kill the person who killed Mark. And so—”

“What the hell,” Chenle said, scooting backward. “Okay, look. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Mark was not—not _killed._ That’s completely wrong. He died in a car crash.”

Jisung stayed silent.

“He died in a _car crash._ Jeno said so. Jeno said—” 

Chenle’s voice broke and he turned away, gulping for breath, smearing away tears that had sprung there of their own accord. 

“Why would he lie about something like that?” His words were a whisper. “Jeno wouldn’t lie to me. It makes no sense.”

But it made sense to Jisung. Just watching Chenle react like this . . . it was enough to make it obvious why Jeno hadn’t wanted to tell him.

“Jaemin kept coming over,” Chenle was mumbling. “Kept cuddling him to sleep . . . he had a lot of nightmares . . . it couldn’t have been because . . . oh, God. Why Mark? Why would anyone hurt Mark?”

“The Serial Killer Society works by picking names out of a lottery,” Jisung said. “All the names come from hijacked census records. I guess they drew Mark’s name.”

Chenle sobbed. “That’s horrible. That’s so _horrible_.”

 _But it’s just the way the SKS works,_ Jisung thought.

A split second later— _oh shit he’s right, that_ is _kinda fucked up._

It was just that his whole life, Jisung had seen crime as something granted. And his opinion of the SKS had always been the same as the rest of the people he knew: disapproving, but not particularly disturbed. The victims of the SKS were just regular, albeit unfortunate, parts of the great give-and-take in the world of crime. 

But here was Chenle, who had a dead brother because of that give-and-take. 

Jisung was starting to think that he’d been wrong all this time about what crime really was.

“Do you want a hug?” he offered weakly.

Chenle nodded tearfully. Jisung got up and sat beside him on the bed, wrapping his arm around his shoulder.

It took a while for him to calm down. Jisung was patient, unafraid of the silence that spilled through the room as the other boy slowly quieted.

After a while, Chenle cleared his throat. His voice was small.

“Did you know?” 

“About Jeno’s transaction?” Jisung asked. “I did.”

“. . . When you met me, did you know?”

“No?” Jisung said. “No, I don’t think so.”

They’d met at their high school orientation, where he’d been immediately enthralled by Chenle’s cute smile and extensive knowledge of all of Jisung’s favorite books.

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know.” Chenle’s shoulders hunched. “Maybe you wanted to be my friend out of pity, or something.”

Jisung spluttered, at a loss of what to say to _that_ absurd statement.

“It seems like a valid possibility, okay? I don’t know.”

“Chenle—I’m your friend, no strings attached.” 

Jisung hadn’t meant for it to come out so sincere. But it did. It was a promise, the kind of promise that meant something in this world where friendships weren’t common and ulterior motives _were_.

“How does your arm feel?” Jisung asked, to change the subject.

“Like shit, honestly.” Chenle laughed, just a little. He wiped his nose. “But it’s better than being dead, I guess. Thank you for taking care of me.”

Jisung’s heart beat a little faster. “I wasn’t the one who patched you up. It was the doctor.” 

“Sure, but still, thanks for being here.” Chenle patted Jisung’s knee. “For waiting for me to wake up and all. It’s sweet of you.”

Jisung’s stomach exploded into butterflies. His voice came out in a croak. “You’re . . . you’re welcome.”

“What time is it?” Chenle yawned. “I kind of want to go kill Jeno for lying to me about all of this stuff.” A wince. “Okay, poor choice of words there. No one will be killing anyone. I just—where can I find him?”

“Well, it’ll be dawn in a few hours,” Jisung said. “You can find him then. He’s in his room upstairs, the one the boss lent him. You’ll probably end up getting your own room, too.”

“Really? Alright.”

After a moment, Jisung started to disengage himself from Chenle’s side. “I guess I should leave, huh? Let you get some more sleep.”

Chenle grabbed his hand. “You don’t need to! You could stay here with me. For a little longer. Keep me company? I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep without seeing, like, frightening things behind my eyelids.” A shiver.

“Oh. Well, in that case.” Jisung picked up the paperback he’d left on the swivel chair. “I brought a copy of Of Mice and Men, if you want to talk books.”

“Of course I want to talk books,” Chenle said, settling back into his pillows and making room for Jisung. “Shall we?”

They stayed in the infirmary until night bled into morning. It was a good time.

###

_Incredible._

_Donghyuck was incredible, Jeno decided after a few months of being in the other boy’s company. Jeno couldn’t begin to imagine how Mark had managed to snag someone like Donghyuck: someone who loved musicals, could roast anyone on the spot on any given day, liked eating Nutella with a spoon straight from the jar, and was incurably funny and friendly and impossible to dislike._

_“Foil,” Chenle remarked once._

_“We’re out of foil,” Jaemin said. They were in the kitchen, baking cookies for Mark’s birthday. “All we have is parchment paper.”_

_“No, I meant that Mark and Donghyuck are like foils to each other.”_

_“Is that some type of literature lingo?” Jeno asked._

_“It means that they’re opposites. Their personalities balance each others’ out.” Chenle’s gaze was on Mark and Donghyuck on the couch, Donghyuck talking excitedly about something and playing with the skin of Mark’s kneecap, while the older boy listened with an indulgent smile._

_“They should just get married already,” Jaemin said._

_Jeno lobbed a chocolate chip at him. “They’ve only been dating for like a year.”_

_“They’re in_ love _,” Jaemin insisted._

_He wasn’t wrong. It was the obvious truth._

_But name lotteries didn’t care whether or not you were in love._

###

In his office, surrounded by night, Renjun played with the pendant of his necklace until his fingertips ached from it. He tried to distract himself by surfing the Internet, but he wasn’t quite registering anything he was reading. Instead, his mind was occupied by other things.

Namely, one blond-haired secretary of his.

 _Click. Click. Click._ Renjun’s locket snapped open and shut, again and again.

He stole a glance at the photo in the pendant, then dragged his eyes away before he could stare too long. With a defeated sigh he got up and left his desk.

He pressed his palm to a hidden compartment in the wall and it slid forward, activating a series of complex clockwork mechanics that worked in eerie, well-greased silence. In a few moments, the office wall shrank into the floor, revealing a secret, medium-sized room adjacent to Renjun’s office.

Renjun stepped into the room. The clockwork wall sealed shut behind him, plunging him into darkness. With a blind yet practiced motion, Renjun reached out and flicked on the light switch.

The room he stood in was an art gallery.

Dozens of paintings hung on the walls, varying in style from watercolors to acrylics and everything in between. Several pieces of artwork that were not afforded room on the walls sat propped on the floor against each other. Each piece varied in size—one was as small as Renjun’s palm, and another was enormous enough that it was attached to the expanse of the ceiling—and each piece varied in color palette and art style as well.

The only thing they had in common was the boy within them.

In one, the boy was crouching over a family of pale yellow ducklings and cradling one of them in his hands. In another, the boy was at a desk, a stack of school textbooks piled in front him and a pencil caught mid-twirl between his fingertips. In a third, the boy was sitting on a forlorn swing set, gazing at a sunset smeared gray and ash in the background.

Renjun picked up one of the paintings. In this one, the boy was standing ankle-deep in a lily pond. His pants were hiked up to his knees. His head was tilted at an angle that implied that if he had eyes, he’d be looking straight at the person capturing him on canvas.

But the boy didn’t have eyes. He didn’t even have a face. His only facial feature was an easy grin.

None of the paintings gave him a face. It was always only that grin. That casual smile.

Renjun’s fingertip trailed along the edge of the painting he was holding. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black calligraphy pen.

He uncapped it, braced the painting against his knee, and began to draw. With a steady hand he inked in new details: eyebrows, a nose, other small facial details. Finally, his hand stilled, and he seemed to gather himself in a long deep moment before he went to draw two crescent moons as the boy’s eyes.

After that, he recapped the pen, set the painting down, and examined it.

Finally, it was complete.

All these years, Renjun had been afraid to give the boy a face. He’d been afraid he’d mess it up. Get a detail wrong, ruin everything, sully the memory.

But now it worked. He’d drawn it perfectly. Not a stroke out of place. It should have been gratifying, but all Renjun felt was dread, a worm wriggling about in his gut. Finally being able to paint a face . . . it confirmed his suspicions, if not for the first time then for the last.

With a defeated exhale, he sat down on the floor, resting his elbows on his knees and running fingers through his lavender hair.

He stayed there until dawn, all alone in a clockwork room full of paintings of a faceless boy.

###

Jeno woke up tangled in the blankets and in Jaemin’s limbs. Sunlight filtered through the opaque window of the bedroom—the quarters Huang gave him as lodging. The room was sparsely decorated. Jeno hugged Jaemin’s arm tighter and tried to go back to sleep.

After a while he heard Jaemin mumble his name.

“Hmmhng?” 

Jaemin’s hand came up. He touched Jeno’s face, then his ear, then finally his hair. “You . . .” A yawn. “You didn’t tell me you were going to dye your hair.” 

Jeno’s laugh was sleepy. “I didn’t know I was going to either. Part of the job description apparently? Dunno.”

Jaemin tugged on his ear. “I like it. It looks . . .”

It took so long for him to finish his sentence that Jeno found himself drifting back to sleep.

“. . . good. Like, really good.”

“Yeah? Yeah, Huang said he liked it,” Jeno murmured, his eyes still shut. “I almost thought he was flirting with me, but . . .”

He trailed off and opened his eyes, becoming alert all at once.

Jeno’s memories of last night after the police station were hazy, but he remembered that after he’d brought Jaemin in the privacy of his bedroom, Jaemin had fallen straight into bed, curled up, and cried for hours. It had taken forever for him to calm down enough to go to sleep, and it’d only happened once he’d been securely in Jeno’s arms.

It was very much similar to how Jaemin had hugged Jeno to sleep in the days after Mark’s death. Except this time, their roles were switched.

Presently, Jeno swallowed. “Do you want to talk about what happened yesterday?” he whispered.

Jaemin made a face. “Not really.”

“You should call Lami and your dad. See how they’re doing.”

Jaemin sighed. “They’ll be fine. You know my dad. He’s sorta useless when my mom’s there, but without her, he’s a fully capable father.”

They lapsed into silence. Jaemin plumped his pillow beneath him. When he spoke again, his voice was full of smile. 

“I’d rather talk about how you think the mafia boss is flirting with you.”

Jeno groaned in mock annoyance, although the change of subject was not lost on him. If Jaemin wanted conversational reprieve, Jeno would not deny him it.

“I didn’t mean to say he was flirting with me.”

“But do you think it’s true?” Jaemin nudged him. “Do you?”

“Maybe? I don’t know. I’m probably just overreacting.” Jeno rubbed his eye. “Is there any way he’s even legitimately attracted to me?”

“Jeno,” Jaemin laughed. “I hate to break it to you, but you’re kind of a babe.”

“What? Jaem, no, come on.”

“It’s the truth! I’m a judgemental bitch, if I think someone’s hot, they are _._ ”

Jeno knew that well enough. “Is it the hair?” he mumbled. “Before it, no one ever complimented me on my appearance. . .”

Jaemin shook his head. “No one’s hit on you before because if anyone tried, Mark would bite their head off. The definition of a helicopter brother.”

“What? No, I don’t remember that.”

“Because you were too busy shooting hoops, love.”

“I was not.”

“Wanna bet?”

The banter continued. Jeno would be lying if he said he wasn’t relieved for it. Changing the subject, gossipping—these were integral to Jaemin’s personality and they went to show that last night’s events hadn’t broken him. He would be fine.

“We never changed out of our work clothes,” Jaemin said finally with a laugh. “You know? You’re still in your mafia fit, and I’m. . .”

He trailed off.

“You’re what?”

“Still wearing my average clothes. The same kind I wear every day. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

Jeno rolled over to face him, half-suspicious. “Why do you sound funny?”

“Excuse me, that’s just the way my voice is.”

“Wait, is that makeup?” Jeno reached forward to poke the skin underneath Jaemin’s eyebrow. His fingertip came away glittery. “Are you wearing _makeup_?”

“Maybe. Just a teensy tiny bit.” Jaemin leaned out of poking reach. “Why? Can’t I look nice when I want to?”

Something wasn’t adding up. He sounded too nervous.

“You’re up to something,” Jeno decided. “Your glitter stays put for an entire night? That’s got to be some expensive shit. Why are you wearing it?”

“Nothing. I was just chilling. Not doing anything out of the ordinary.”

Jeno narrowed his eyes. Cautiously he pushed aside the blankets and unzipped Jaemin’s midnight blue jacket. Pricey cosmetics probably meant pricey clothes. Pricey clothes meant something fishy. Jaemin never dressed up.

The shirt underneath Jaemin’s jacket was mesh. _Not_ normal attire. Jeno’s gaze whipped up accusingly. “Oh _,_ you’re definitely up to something.”

“I’m allowed to have a nice body if I want,” Jaemin whined, pushing Jeno’s hands away.

“You know I’m not talking about that. That shirt! Your makeup! You dressed up for someone. You were on a date!”

“No, I was not. Listen—”

“And here you were, teasing me about Huang, when _you_ were the one with the bigger scoop to begin with. Sheesh! I can’t believe you.”

“I wasn’t—Jeno, hear me out—”

The sonorous ringtone of an opera song pealed through the air. One of their phones.

Jeno swung his legs off the bed, found his phone, and answered the call, shooting Jaemin a suspicious look as he did.

“Hello?”

“ _I’m here_ ,” came an all-too-familiar voice. Jeno’s heart missed a beat. “ _The doorkeeper’s giving me hell, though, and I think it’s because I’m wearing a lip ring. It must make me look shady. Won’t you come and help a guy out, Jeno? And honestly, since when does the mafia boss care if his visitors wear lip rings or not?”_

Jeno and Jaemin were already scrambling out the door to get downstairs.

“ _Cut it out, you freakishly tall, pink-haired infant—so what if I didn’t make an appointment? No, I’m not a serial killer, I swear it—if I were a serial killer wouldn’t you be dead by now? Ugh fuck it, Jeno please just get your ass down here—_ ”

Jeno and Jaemin tore down the glass staircase, headed straight for the door. Jaemin threw it open, letting in a hot, summery blast of the morning. On the doorstep stood an amber-eyed boy, deep in an argument with Jisung, whose arms were crossed in an obvious expression of his displeasure.

“Donghyuck!” Jaemin squealed.

“Donghyuck,” Jeno choked.

When Donghyuck turned and saw them, the grin that came to his face was blinding. “Hey bitches.” He spread his arms wide. “It’s me.”

###

Renjun was in the middle of a calm, run-of-the-mill, brunch meeting with his squads when the lounge doors suddenly flew open and in stalked a furious stranger wearing a lip ring and who looked like he was ready to beat them all to pulp.

Renjun raised his eyebrows at the unexpected intrusion.

A moment after, Jisung ran into the room, looking breathless. “Boss, I tried to stop him, but he was just too fast—”

“Which one of you is it?” demanded the stranger. His gaze roved the people at the table. “ _Which one of you is Huang?_ ”

To Renjun’s left, the leader of the nonet squadron set down her teacup. “Boss, do you know this man?” she asked in a quiet voice. 

“I don’t think so, Jihyo,” he replied.

That was all the order she needed. She was on her feet immediately. “Girls,” she called. 

The rest of the squadron had already gotten up as well, their brunch forgotten. A few of them slipped nunchucks out of their skirt compartments.

The doors flew open again, this time bearing Jeno and Jaemin, both in various states of disarray. “Donghyuck,” Jeno yelled. “Don’t do anything stupid!”

 _Interesting,_ Renjun thought. “Is this a friend of yours, Jeno?” 

“Oh—hi boss.” Jeno took Donghyuck’s elbow and cast a nervous look around the room at the nine young women. “Yes, he’s my friend. Please don’t hurt him.”

Donghyuck ignored him. “You’re the boss? Huang Renjun? Ohoho, come here, am _I_ going to beat the _shit_ out of you—”

“You will be doing no such thing,” interrupted Dejun from Renjun’s right. “Sir, just who do you think you are?”

“Who do you think _you_ are?” Donghyuck shot back, his eyes on Renjun. “That man let my little brother get hurt. Didn’t you, Huang? Because of your carelessness, Chenle got a bullet in his arm. I am not okay with that. Jeno, would you let me go?”

“Not until you calm down.” Jeno’s grip tightened on Donghyuck’s elbow. His voice lowered to a hiss. “Those ladies each have black belts in Taekwondo, Donghyuck, you do not want to go against them.”

Renjun was more than ready to let Jihyo and the girls have at it with this volatile new intruder. But just one look at Jeno and the fright in his eyes at the thought of his friend in danger, and Renjun knew he could not let Donghyuck get hurt.

“Stand down,” he sighed, gesturing for his employees to take their seats. “There will be no blood spilled today.”

The sisters obeyed, all while fixing Donghyuck with threatening stares.

To his credit, he didn’t waver, his eyes flaying Renjun with impressive intensity. “You have any excuses, Huang? An explanation for why you let one of your clients get backlash for a transaction you were supposed to have a handle on?”

“I don’t have any excuses,” Renjun said. “I truly am regretful that Lee Chenle sustained injury. However, I have since discussed compensation with Jeno: all medical treatment covered, all lodging provided. I think it was an adequate agreement.”

“Adequate my ass,” Donghyuck said. “Tell me how you’re going to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“It will not happen again. I will make sure of it,” Renjun said. “Who exactly are you? You have a name?” 

“My friends call me Donghyuck.” A sneer. “But _you_ can just call me Haechan.”

“Haechan . . . Haechan . . .” Renjun cast a look at one of his employees, Yangyang, who was sitting two seats down. “Where do we know a Haechan?”

“Popular assassin,” Yangyang supplied. “Popularly booked. Youngest member of the guild.”

“Right.” Renjun turned his focus back on the boy in question. “I thought you were on hiatus, though?”

“Vacation. And it’s over now.” Donghyuck sniffed. “Thanks to you.”

“Let’s go outside,” Jeno said, tugging on Donghyuck’s arm. “I think they’re supposed to be having a meeting.”

Donghyuck grumbled at that, but let himself be led away. (Renjun didn’t miss the subtle middle finger he sent his way.) Jaemin followed. Jisung gave Renjun a hesitant look—Renjun gestured for him to leave the room, too.

When all of them had filed out, Jihyo let out a long breath and turned to Renjun. “That was tense, huh, boss?”

“Indeed.” Renjun shook out his shoulders, returning his focus to the matter at hand. The staff meeting. “Did anyone finish the charts for the trends in how the synthetic drug market is faring lately?”

The meeting commenced like normal. After it had ended and the squads were cleaning up, Renjun found himself being pulled aside by Dejun.

“What is it?”

“It’s about Lee Jeno’s transaction,” Dejun said. He maneuvered them into a corner of the room. “I was the one who carried out the order. There are some important details I need to tell you about what I saw at Joo Geum’s headquarters.”

“What kind of details?”

“She had a graveyard in her backyard.”

Renjun’s heart dropped. “You’re kidding.”

“I’m telling the truth, boss.”

“Dammit,” Renjun breathed. He cast a furtive look side to side, looking to see if any of the other employees were nearby. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before? Dejun, that is vital information.”

“During the torture process, I tried to get the answers out of her,” Dejun continued. “She insisted that the graves were just for her pet rats.”

“She could have been lying.”

“At that point, I had her ribs twisted backward. She was in no position to make lies.”

“Dejun, we still can’t trust her word for it.”

“I know that, and that’s why even after the job was over, I had some of my intel sources in the area sniff out what was going on. I asked them to dig up a grave and report if they found anything other than rat skeletons.”

“Well, did they?” Renjun worried at the inside of his bottom lip.

“It’s worse, boss.” Dejun’s gaze was dark. “By the time my intel got to the scene, they said that one of the graves had already been dug up. Rather—it looked like something had crawled out.”

Renjun took a deep breath to steady his racing heart. “Please tell me it was a rat. A nice, rat-sized grave.”

“The coffin was human-sized.”

 _Fuck._ “Did the headstone have a name?”

Dejun nodded and stepped closer to whisper the name in Renjun’s ear.

Upon hearing it, Renjun’s eyes widened so hard it hurt. He jerked away from Dejun with an expression of utter disbelief.

“Boss,” Dejun said, “I think Jeno’s brother might not be as dead as we think he is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything will be revealed with time.
> 
> Yikes so we had a lot of angst and Nomin in this chapter. I swear this is a Noren fic though! The Noren is coming!! Trust me!!!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will we ever see ot7 Dreamies? Surely not in this very chapter? Surely not???? *cough cough*
> 
> Anyway please enjoy yee lezgedit.
> 
> Dear my beta, 도토리: i dun even bloody know what I'd do without you :")

The lost boy woke up in darkness.

Flat on his back, he stared for a while into empty space. He shut his eyes, opened them, shut them and opened them, but the darkness that surrounded him was so obsolete that at times he couldn’t tell if his eyes were closed or not.

He was vaguely unsettled. He wondered why this place smelled so much like earth, and even though he inhaled as deeply as he could, his lungs felt pinched, oxygen-deprived. His hand reached up to push his duvet away—he expected light to come pouring down on him.

His hand hit a dry, hard ceiling the moment he raised it. 

_ Weird. _ Again, he tried to reach up.

Again, his knuckles hit the ceiling.

Suddenly, a horrible, horrible notion occurred to him. He tried to jerk into a sitting position, but his forehead came into contact with the absurdly low ceiling and he banged right off it and down onto his back again, his head ringing with the force of the hit. His breaths became shallow. The ceiling was  _ inches above his nose _ .

“Help,” he croaked. His throat was parched. “Help?”

The question sank unanswered into the stale air. His heart pounded wildly in his chest and he felt the urge to sit up again, to kick and kick and kick and kick until something gave way. At the same time though, he warned himself not to try, because he knew it wouldn’t work and it would just mean solidifying this reality that  _ he was stuck in a dead people box. _

His fingernails scratched long marks down through the wood beneath him. The wood was soggy and came apart easily under his nails.

Hope flared. Frantically he scratched at the wood underneath him, raking his fingernails across it again and again and shredding it into long, wet ribbons. His pinky came in contact with mush that was even damper than the wood and he knew he’d hit the ground. 

He tried to flip over onto his stomach, since his arm was aching from the awkward angle of digging, but his shoulder hit the ceiling and he was trapped on his back and he wanted to scream.

Back to scratching. 

Soon he’d carved out a decent chunk of the wood. His fingertips stung, and he was sure he’d cracked one of his nails, but soon he was digging into soft handfuls of icy dirt so soggy it could have passed as semi-solid mud. 

His lungs felt pinched. 

He dug faster. He started using his other hand to scratch through the coffin floor on the other side of his body. 

Too many times to count, he paused and willed himself not to succumb to the heavy dizziness that ate at his eyes every time he blinked. If he stopped to shut his eyes for too long, they might not open for him again.

He contorted his arm into a very uncomfortable position to get to the wood behind his head. It came apart readily for him. Using his senseless and numb fingertips to claw, claw, claw, claw, he fought surges of panic and claustrophobia.

_ Come on. Come on. _

His fingers hit a hard surface. He grunted as he tugged a rock out, then coughed as the mud held in place by the stone came unpacked and slid down the back of his neck. 

Grimly he dug on.

Eventually he carved out a large enough area behind his head that he began to push upward, ignoring the clumps of loose mud that came dislodged and landed on his face, his cheek, his eyelid. He set his mouth in a line and used both hands to rake at the dirt above him as fast as he could.

An interminable time passed.

His arms ached.

He didn’t stop.

A second rock came unpacked, this one much larger than the first. It brought a miniature avalanche of mud down onto his face and he willed his every muscle not to throw up at the cold, slimy sensation. Carefully he spat out the mud, inhaled deeply, steeled himself, and forced his muscles into propelling himself upward at an angle into the mud overhead.

His calf cramped and his eyelashes were wet with tears, yet he mercilessly pushed upward. He imagined he was a fetus, coming headfirst up out of a womb. 

Soon he was completely enveloped in mud. Although his pocket of oxygen was gone and his breath sat trapped in his lungs, all he felt was bliss. He’d left the coffin.

With no small amount of effort, he struggled onto his side and wormed upward through the thickness and blackness. His eyes were shut now.

Until. . . 

Until his head was suddenly met with an absence of resistance.

His eyes came open slowly, blinking to rid themselves of the muck on their lids. He squinted into the blinding light of the moonbeams, weak as they were, all around him.

His surroundings came into clarity: he was in a graveyard, and a tattered one at that, with dark weeds everywhere he could see.

After a moment he realized what he must look like. A disembodied head, protruding through the ground in the dead of the night. Quickly he scrambled to extract the rest of himself from the ground, but once he staggered to his feet, sopping wet and positively lathered with mud, his legs gave out and he collapsed onto his hands and knees.

Everywhere was cold. Everything smelled like dirt. He hugged himself for warmth but his own arms felt icy around his torso.

He glanced behind him and saw was a small, plain tombstone in the shape of a simple square. A name gleamed there:  _ Mark Lee.  _

“Mark,” he said aloud, testing the name. It sounded achingly, poignantly familiar.

It terrified him.

He shuddered. And shuddered and shuddered and shuddered until it was all he could do to get to his feet and walk away from the grave, away from  _ his _ grave, and trudge away into the night, still shuddering and shuddering and shuddering.

###

The staff lounge had mostly cleared out, leaving Renjun and Dejun alone. 

“Should we tell Jeno about what’s happened to his brother?” asked Dejun. 

Renjun shook his head. “He’d lose his mind. He’d have tons of questions too, and currently no one has any answers except for Mark himself, who could have wandered anywhere in the States by now. I’m going to dispatch one of the girls to try and track him down. Chou, probably, cuz she knows how to stay low. I don’t want you talking about this to anyone else, you hear me, Xiao? This stays quiet until we get some information on the situation.”

He noticed Dejun peering at him with an odd expression.

“What? What is it?”

“Boss, since when do you care if someone loses their mind?”

Renjun cleared his throat, reached up to tug at the collar of his turtleneck. “I need my secretary with his intact sanity, thank you.”

“True,” Dejun said, although he sounded dubious. Then— “Also, boss, I’d recommend away from Tzuyu. Perhaps you should select one of the older girls?”

“Why?”

“Tzuyu doesn’t kill. Doesn’t like it, won’t do it.”

“I know that.”

Dejun’s brow flickered in confusion. “But you need someone who—”

“No, I don’t. I don’t want to  _ kill _ Mark Lee. What makes you think I would?”

“It would be the cleanest solution,” Dejun said slowly, seemingly in disbelief that he had to explain this to Renjun. “It would put a thorn in the side of Operation Phoenix, effectively hindering our enemies’ progress on science that for once we don’t have the upper hand on. Exterminating Mark Lee is the logical response to this predicament.”

Renjun faltered. “You’re right.”

He didn’t like the way Dejun was looking at him. Judging him. No—assessing him, putting together pieces that Renjun hadn’t yet tried to put together himself, too nervous at what he might discover from them.

“Okay,” Dejun finally said. “We’ll see if Chou can hunt Mark down.”

“Good. Remember, keep this from Jeno.”

Renjun left the room, aware of the other man’s gaze on his back, thinking no doubt something along the lines of,  _ Huang, are you sure you know what you’re doing? _

“I have no idea,” Renjun muttered to himself. “I really fucking don’t.”

###

Mark was wandering. 

He’d been wandering for a very long time by now. Two weeks? Six weeks? From the view of an outsider, his journey might seem aimless—as if all he did was drift from city to city, finding odd places to spend the night.

That was false. Mark was smarter than that. After crawling out of the graveyard, he’d noticed the public park just across the street, and gone over to check the community pinboard. Someone had pinned there a laminated map of the city and county. He’d spent a long time staring at the map, committing it to memory.  _ New Chicago.  _ That was what this place was called.

The name was vaguely familiar, but he got the feeling it wasn’t where he belonged. There was someplace he belonged—someplace that wasn’t a grave. It had to have something to do with the tattoo on the inside of his left wrist: the two letters in dark bold ink that read  _ LA _ .

“Do you know a place with the abbreviation of L.A.?” he asked a middle-aged lady walking her dog, when morning came. 

She’d been polite enough to stop. “Sorry?”

“L.A.” Mark squirmed underneath her wary gaze. He knew that with all the muck covering him, he probably looked and smelled less than savory. “A place with that abbreviation.”

“There’s Louisiana, hun. That’s a little ways south.”

The way she said it made it clear she thought he would know what she was talking about. 

“Louisiana? How can I get there?”

“You’d have to take a jet. Or a train.”

Her dog started to bark in impatience at not being walked, and she gave Mark a sympathetic look as she let the animal lead her away.

“Have a good day,” Mark said.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she called, but she didn’t look back. 

That encounter had been a while ago. Since then, Mark had made up his mind that he needed to go to Louisiana.

He owned nothing except the clothes on his back, and he knew nothing except that his name was probably Mark Lee. Two names that were common enough that when he accessed a public library computer and typed them in, he found hundreds of results, none of which gave him a clue about who he was supposed to be. 

Louisiana was his only lead. 

Mark googled jet ticket prices, only to end up face-to-face with several numbers that didn’t mean anything to him. “Fucking frustrating,” he murmured, realizing that he had no reference point to judge the amount of money he was looking at.

At least the numbers for train tickets were decidedly smaller.  _ Still unattainable,  _ he thought with a sinking heart. Because where was he supposed to procure $20 from? He didn’t have any money at all. 

He would just have to walk. 

The days that followed were unreliable blurs. He depended entirely on his photographic memory of the map to lead him out of the county. And in the next county, he stopped to study a new map, which he then followed out of  _ that _ county. Again and again, this continued, until he’d left the state of Illinois.

He stopped at soup kitchens, although he kept himself from eating until he was full, because the one time he’d done that had ended up with him falling into a food coma and sleeping the day away. He’d had to continue his journey by night, which of course was not optimal. He had bad eyesight to begin with. He wished he had glasses.

It was a small blessing that it was only autumn, so the temperatures of winter hadn’t begun to set in. Otherwise, he might have frozen to death on the nights he spent on park benches. 

During those long, lonely nights, his only solace was the sure tattoo on his wrist. It was a symbol that he  _ was  _ someone. His memories might be blank slates, and his life might seem empty and aimless, but there on his skin was a reminder that he was someone who had a history.

Someone who belonged someplace.

At least, that was what he was counting on. He couldn’t let himself believe that he was nobody. There had to be a reason he’d made it out of that grave. 

_ Louisiana.  _

When he got there, though, he realized he’d made a grave miscalculation.

“What do you mean, Louisiana isn’t the only place with an abbreviation of L.A.?”

The bartender across the counter shrugged. “Don’t know what to tell you, man. Funny that you didn’t know that Los Angeles exists.”

_ Los Angeles. Los Angeles. _ Mark ran a finger down his wrist, feeling the tattoo there. “Oh my God. How far away is that?”

“L.A.? A few hours by flight.”

“What about on foot?”

That got him a weird look. “You thinking about walking to California? That’ll take forever.”

“Oh no.” Mark slumped into one of the bar stools, his head in his hands. “No, no, no, no,  _ no. _ ”

He’d finally made it to the destination he’d hung every last hope on—only to find that he’d gotten it all wrong. 

_ Well, what were you expecting?  _ His tears threatened to spill over.  _ A great welcoming committee? A family who would be waiting for you as soon as you arrived in their state? _

He didn’t like that the answer was yes.  _ Yes.  _ Somehow, he’d deluded himself into thinking Louisiana might be home. That there might be someone looking for him, waiting for him. 

“Hey . . . are you crying?” The bartender peered at him. “Want a drink?”

“I’m homeless,” Mark sobbed aloud. “I’m homeless and lost and I don’t think I have a family and I doubt there’s even anyone looking for me and—and I’m  _ homeless. _ ”

“You are?” The bartender sounded sad. “But you’re so young.”

At that, Mark only cried harder.

The bartender left to go attend to some customers, but soon they returned and took a deep breath. “Look here, kid. Look at me.”

Mark raised his tear-streaked face.

“You have a place in Los Angeles?” the bartender asked. 

Mark nodded.

“Need some way to get there?”

Another nod.

“I’ve got thirty dollars in tip money saved from the week. I don’t need it.” The bartender hesitated, then slid a small stack of cash over the counter to Mark. “Take it. It’s enough for a train ride.”

Mark blinked in doubt, his eyes resting on the money. His throat bobbed. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” said the bartender firmly.

“But . . . but I won’t be able to repay you.”

“That’s how charity works. You give something to someone and don’t expect anything back. Now  _ take it,  _ kid, before I change my mind.” 

Mark felt that the bartender wasn’t the type of person who’d appreciate having their generosity spurned, so he quickly swiped the money with a sincere thank-you. The bartender patted his shoulder and walked off to pour drinks for some other customers—Mark caught a glimpse of the bartender’s name tag,  _ Oh Sehun _ , and committed it to memory.

That night, he boarded a holo-train to Los Angeles. He still had a few extra bucks to spare after the fee, so he bought himself a sandwich and a coffee. The jostling of the high-speed train made the hot drink splashed over his fingers when he uncapped the cup, but he just licked the liquid off his hand. He was determined not to waste a cent. 

The darkness of the night was velvety and all-encompassing. Mark ate his sandwich while gazing out the window, the train rumbling beneath him.

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was finally headed in the right direction. 

_ Los Angeles,  _ he thought.  _ I’m coming home. _

###

It had been a few nebulous weeks since the day of the summit. Jeno had spent that time settling into the role of Renjun’s secretary. 

Renjun was often discussing clandestine matters with Dejun, the two of them discreetly falling silent whenever Jeno was in earshot. Jeno tried not to dwell too much on it. It wasn’t like he had the right to know about everything that went on in Renjun’s life—and if it was a business matter they were keeping from him, they probably had a good reason for it. 

Other than that small discomfort of feeling like he was being left out of something, practically everything  _ else _ that went on behind the scenes in Renjun’s business was Jeno’s domain. He never found himself without paperwork on his hands. Occasionally Renjun took him with him to important meetings to act as a scribe, but otherwise Jeno spent most days in his eighty-fourth-floor office, poring over fine print and filing documents and keeping detailed tabs on the activities of all of Renjun’s business partners.

The world of crime was surprisingly sophisticated. 

Predictably, there were parts of the secretary job that involved more than just office work. Jeno found himself bringing tea and snacks to Renjun’s office. Renjun usually made his food requests over via loudspeaker, which Jeno soon realized was Renjun’s favorite mode of communication. Jeno caught on to how the boss thought it was incredibly amusing to address his employees over the intercom, since it was also audible to everyone else in the facility, and practically everyone—even Jeno, he admitted it—got a good laugh out of listening to a coworker suffer playful reprimanding from the boss.

_ Playful _ . Renjun was like that. As Jeno spent more time around him, eating dinner with him to discuss work or going for the occasional late-night coffee run, he was amazed at all the facets of Renjun’s personality that had been initially hidden behind his impassive mafia boss mask.

For one, Renjun was  _ funny _ . In a cool, sarcastic, dry sort of way. He didn’t try to be; he didn’t even make any jokes. What he did was make snarky remarks, about the state of the economy, about the state of Yangyang’s perpetually wrinkled uniform, about the state of confusion that Jeno was routinely subject to, during their occasional Mandarin lessons which were mostly characterized by Kunhang being patient and Renjun being decidedly  _ not. _

“Just learn from your little brother,” said Renjun one day, after thirty long minutes of trying to get Jeno to understand one of the concepts in the Mandarin workbook. (It was the sixth Mandarin workbook Renjun had bought him.) 

“Chenle?” Jeno rolled his eyes. It was a bad habit he’d picked up from Renjun, who rolled his eyes so often sometimes Jeno worried they’d get stuck in his head. “If Chenle were my teacher he’d just laugh at my bad pronunciation the whole lesson.”

There it was again—a Renjun eye roll. “Isn’t that better than me laughing at you the whole time?”

“No one’s laughing at anyone,” Kunhang cut in from the other side of the table, his face the picture of exasperation. “Jeno, it’s okay. It’s tough to learn a new language! But you’ll get the hang of it. Then you’ll finally be able to do things like field those calls from the substance dealers in China.”

“I heard from Jisung that Chenle’s excellent at Mandarin,” Renjun said with a small snort. “Chenle’s the only thing Jisung ever talks about these days.”

Jeno didn’t doubt it. He wasn’t sure how it had happened, but the two high schoolers had become inseparable. They ate all their meals together, did homework together in one of their bedrooms—which were, coincidentally, adjacent to each other on Renjun’s sixty-third floor—and every morning, they left to go to school together. Sometimes, they were chauffeured by Byeongkwan, and other times, they opted to leave early and just walk to class. 

Jeno never would have let Chenle walk across town alone if not for Jisung. But also, there hadn’t been any serial killer attacks since the first one—thankfully, it seemed the SKS had lost interest in Jeno now that he was underneath Huang’s protection.

All that aside, even if Chenle’s every waking hour hadn’t been busy hanging out with his pink-haired friend, Jeno had the feeling Chenle wouldn’t have consented to being Jeno’s Mandarin tutor. Ever since their argument, he could barely stand to be in the same room as Jeno. 

The argument had been weekends ago, over the breakfast buffet the morning after Chenle had woken up from his meds.

The high schooler had been quiet throughout the majority of the breakfast, nursing his cereal in silence. Jeno pushed his hashbrowns around on his plate before he broke the silence by tentatively asking if his arm was feeling any better.

At that, Chenle had slammed his spoon down with enough force that it splashed the milk out of his bowl. “Why did you hide it from me?”

“Hide what?” Jeno stalled.

“Please don’t play dumb,” Chenle said. “Jisung told me everything.”

“. . . Did he?”

“Yeah. We need to talk about Mark, Jeno.”

“. . . Do we?”

“Yeah! Why the hell did you think it was okay to hide from me what actually happened to Mark? Why did I have to hear about it from someone who wasn’t you?”

“I. . .” Panicked by the uncharacteristic anger in Chenle’s voice, Jeno tried to find words. His explanation sounded weak even to his own ears. “I didn’t . . . want you to have to worry about it?”

“Worry about it?” Chenle looked aghast. “ _ Worry _ about it? What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Jeno? Mark is my brother every bit as much as he is yours!”

“I—I don’t know. I thought it’d be better if you didn’t know. I figured it would only make you upset and—and do something rash—”

Chenle’s laugh was bitter. “Something rash? Like what you did? No. Don’t give me that shit. I’m not an idiot.” He stood up, his chair screeching behind him.

“Chenle?”

“Congrats, Jeno. You lost one brother. Now you’re losing me, too.”

“ _ Chenle _ .” Jeno’s wide eyes filled with tears. “Don’t fucking  _ say _ that.”

All Chenle did was shrug and stalk from the lounge. Jeno stared after him, feeling all sorts of broken.

Not long after, Jaemin and Donghyuck wandered into the lounge and noticed Jeno, sitting forlornly all alone across from cold hashbrowns and an abandoned cereal bowl.

“Jeno?” Jaemin said. “What happened.”

“And why did we just see Chenle walk past looking like someone had just pooped in his baby bottle?” Donghyuck added. “He didn’t even say hi to me.”

“He . . . he said he doesn’t want to be my brother anymore,” Jeno said hollowly.

“What? Chenle said that to you?” Donghyuck demanded. He cast a dark look at where the younger boy had disappeared through the door. “Oh, Jesus. I’m going to beat his ass.”

Jaemin crossed the room quickly, engulfing Jeno into a fierce hug. “Look, baby, Chenle didn’t mean that. He’ll come around . . . He just misses Mark.”

“But I do too,” Jeno sniffled into Jaemin’s shoulder. “So do you. So does Donghyuck.”

Donghyuck walked over and rested his hands on both of their shoulders. A moment passed between the three of them—a moment of shared grief, shared heartbreak.

But of course Donghyuck didn’t sit down and cry with them—that was not Donghyuck. After a few minutes, he’d pulled them to their feet with a “alright, guys, get up, let’s go do something, yeah?” and taken it upon himself to drag the three of them out on an excursion around the city.

Together they window-shopped in high-end boutiques, ate deep-fried french fries from street vendors, and took bad selfies in front of the fountain at the park. Theoretically it was dangerous for Jeno to be out and about, what with serial killers on the hunt—at this point it hadn’t been that long since he’d been instated as Renjun’s secretary—but it was a Saturday, and he didn’t have to go to work, and plus Donghyuck would keep him safe.

Jeno had always known he had great friends, but as the weeks progressed, he was more grateful than ever for their presences. Every night, Jaemin was around—if he wasn’t visiting Lami and his dad. Donghyuck took up a permanent residence in one of Renjun’s empty guest rooms, despite the boss’s haphazard attempts to persuade him to leave. 

Not everything was perfect. In fact, things were far from it. Every day, Chenle showed no interest in rekindling his relationship with Jeno. And there was still Jaemin’s secret, the unknown places he mysteriously disappeared to during the evenings, that went undiscussed between him and Jeno. And Donghyuck’s joy at being reunited with his two best friends was marred by the weight of knowing that Mark was not with them and never would be again.

But at least they were all in the same place. At least they were together. That had to be enough.

###

“We need to see him,” Donghyuck said loudly, barging into Jeno’s office.

It was midday and Jeno was in the middle of eating a salad. “See him?” He wiped dressing off his mouth with the back of his hand. “See who?”

“God, that’s who,” Donghyuck said. He grimaced and passed Jeno a napkin. “You need to see God. Seriously, who eats salads with chopsticks? Even  _ I’m _ not that Asian, and I’m the one who’s lived in Asia half my life.”

“Chopsticks have better reach,” Jeno insisted. He picked up one of the tomatoes in his salad and held it out toward Donghyuck. “See this? That’s a real tomato. It’s not even pseudo. You  _ know _ how real tomatoes cost twice as much as the pseudo ones.” Jeno shook his head. “Sometimes I forget how rich my boss is.”

“Well, I’m glad he’s rich,” Donghyuck said, coming over to sit on Jeno’s desk. “It’s important he’d invest in some quality food for his faithful supporters.” He ruffled Jeno’s hair.

Jeno shied away. “I’m not his faithful supporter.”

“Are you not?”

Jeno wasn’t sure why Donghyuck was giving him that look. “Why are you giving me that look?”

“I heard from Jisung that you and Renjun went out late last night for coffee,” Donghyuck said.

“I did,” said Jeno. “It was a meeting with the police, though. Officer Park. It’s kind of crazy that she works part-time as a barista in the same cafe that I used to work in. I didn’t think the contempire was such a small town.”

“ _ Yes _ , but did you and Renjun go out for coffee or not?” Donghyuck pressed.

“We did,” Jeno conceded. “After the meeting with Officer Park. But Huang had tea, because he doesn’t like coffee. Anyway, Donghyuck, I’m still not sure what you’re getting at—”

“What’s his favorite kind of tea?”

Jeno wrinkled his nose. “Why do you want to know that?”

“Well, do you know it?”

“Yes. It’s earl grey. But he actually likes milk tea more than hot tea, and if he gets milk tea then he always wants boba and cheese foam with it—isn’t that funny? I like boba a lot too.”

Donghyuck clapped his hands. “You even know his bubble tea preferences.”

“Yes.” Jeno drew out the word, uncertainly. “Yes? So what?”

“Mina thinks he flirts with you,” Donghyuck said, examining his fingernails.

Jeno scowled. “You talk to Mina too much. Be careful with her and her sisters, they could kick your ass any day.”

“She likes me. Tells me all the gossip. She and her sisters and even that stoic guy Dejun are half convinced Renjun has caught feelings for you—no one  _ else _ has gotten him to take them for midnight caffeine dates.”

“What? Really? Ugh, well, whatever, it doesn’t matter, you’ve got it all wrong anyway,” Jeno said. “Our relationship is a contractual thing. Because of the rose.”

“Right.” Donghyuck’s face stretched into a grin. “I’m never going to let you live down how somewhere in that tomato-sized brain of yours you thought it was a good idea to steal stuff from Huang Renjun’s garden.”

“At least he didn’t make me his slave,” Jeno mused, lifting a chopstickful of salad to his mouth. “I’m grateful for that.”

“That’s setting the bar kinda low for stuff to be grateful about, don’t you think?”

Jeno chewed his lettuce loudly. “Begone, peasant. I’m trying to take my lunch break in peace. Don’t you have a job?”

“I cleared my schedule,” Donghyuck said. “Irene was so pissed she made a point of booking me with all the backorder clients from 7 to 7 tomorrow.”

Jeno made a face. “7 am to 7 pm? That’s crazy.” 

“7 pm to 7 am,” Donghyuck corrected. “You naive walnut. Assassins try not to do our biz during broad daylight—that’d be peak bro moment.”

Jeno rolled his eyes like Renjun. “But I’ve seen you head out for work at all hours of the day.”

“Well, yes, there’s always the occasional impulse order. When a customer dials up the guild asking for an immediate service. I don’t like doing those ones, because what if the target didn’t deserve to be killed and the customer was just having a bad day?”

Jeno set down his chopsticks. “Why are you here, anyway?”

“Why are any of us here? There’s no intrinsic meaning to life. Nihilism should be a recognized religion.” Donghyuck pulled open one of Jeno’s desk drawers. “Oh my God, are you building a secret army of paper cranes?”

Jeno closed the drawer, effectively hiding the impressive amount of origami that had been accumulating there. “It’s a hobby! And you didn’t answer my question. Why are you here? Who is it that you said we needed to see?”

Donghyuck let out a small sigh. He looked up at Jeno with a serious gaze. “Mark. I want to see him.”

At that, Jeno flinched. He looked down at his salad.

“I can tell you’re trying to come up with an excuse,” Donghyuck said.

Jeno’s words came out weak. “I’m not . . . I’m not done with my lunch yet.”

Donghyuck pulled Jeno out of his chair. “Your salad can wait.”

“It’ll get soggy.”

“You can eat it in the car.”

“But I can’t eat and drive at the same time.”

“I’ll drive then, you buffoon,” Donghyuck sighed, before his smile faded into something more solemn. “But look, man. I think we need to see the columbarium, you know? We haven’t done it at all yet. We should pay a visit.”

He was right. Jeno knew he was.

Still, he hesitated.

“I don’t want to do this alone, Nono,” Donghyuck said.

His plaintive tone was obvious. Jeno took a deep breath. “. . . Okay.”

Donghyuck’s shoulders sank in relief. He propelled Jeno through the door. “Alright, let’s go get Nana and Lele. They’re necessary too.”

They left the office.

###

_ “How much?” _

_ Donghyuck pressed his hand against Mark’s, lining them up from the heel of their palms to the tips of their fingers. “Tell me how much,” he said again. _

_ “How much what?” Mark said, trying to link his fingers with Donghyuck’s. _

_ “You know what.” _

_ Mark shifted his grip on Donghyuck’s hand and pressed a kiss against the other boy’s knuckles. “I love you two hundred and six. That’s how many bones you have in you.” _

_ “You’re such a school nerd,” Donghyuck laughed. _

_ Sure, Mark was a med school student. But with Donghyuck, he didn’t feel like one _ — _ with Donghyuck, he felt like an astronomer, gazing into the sun, one that never rose and never set and just sat in the palm of Mark’s hand like a sempiternal globe of fire and heat and danger and beauty. _

_ “Love always?”  _

_ “Love always,” Mark agreed. _

_ Their matching tattoos had the initials of that phrase, so that they would never forget it.  _

###

“Wear your seatbelt,” Jeno said gruffly, clicking the belt into place around Chenle. “Just ’cause you’ve got a busted arm doesn’t mean you’re off the hook for basic safety procedures.”

“My arm is not busted,” Chenle shot back, shifting around in his car seat to pointedly get farther away from Jeno. “Don’t talk to me.”

“If it’s not busted then what do you call that?” Jeno pointed at Chenle’s bulky sling.

“A nuisance. Just like you.”

“Stop bitching and let me drive,” growled Donghyuck from behind the wheel.

Jeno and Chenle fell silent.

The holo-car had an unfortunate setup with just two seats in the back and two in the front, and Jaemin called shotgun, meaning that Jeno and Chenle were forced to sit next to each other throughout the duration of the car ride to the columbarium. So far, the trip had been characterized by a strained atmosphere between the two brothers.

Jaemin turned on the holo-radio, but nobody sang along. Not even Donghyuck. 

It was a testament to how tense Donghyuck must be feeling, on their way to see Mark’s proverbial grave.

As they parked and got out of the car, none of them said a word. Filed into the columbarium, signed their names one by one into the visitor sign-in sheet by the door. Jeno felt bad for the stranger whose visits were so consistent that their name filled up entire sheets of the sign-in packet—that person must be a regular. No one here wanted to be a regular.

Today, though, the only people who had come to visit were the boys. When they entered the round room whose walls were covered floor to ceiling with thousands of small niches, all housint glass compartments rimmed with gold trim, Jeno felt a lump form in his throat. In most of the glass boxes were urns and photographs. Some had flowers and other such trinkets. All of the boxes had name plates, inscribed in careful calligraphy.

Jeno tried not to look. There was a reason why he hadn’t visited this place earlier; he hated the thought of being surrounded by the endless compartments, each one a symbol for someone who had been cherished and lost. 

If Jeno let himself look at the names on the nameplates, he knew all he would feel was sadness.

_ These people used to be alive,  _ he thought.  _ They used to be alive, but now, all visitors see when they look at their nameplates is a dead person. But just because someone’s gone doesn’t mean we should whittle their existence away into the small, plain adjective of “dead” _ — _ instead, we should remember them for all the things they’d done while they were alive.  _

“Here he is,” Donghyuck said, his voice too loud in the quiet stillness of the room. “This is him.”

The box labeled  _ Mark Lee  _ was located closer to the bottom of the wall. It didn’t have much in it. Just the nameplate, and a photo of Mark, grinning and hugging a bouquet of flowers and wearing his navy college graduation robes. The picture had been taken just a couple weeks before he’d died—his eyes were wide and warm brown and crinkled into a smile..

Donghyuck knelt down by the box. “We’re here,” he spoke softly to the photograph. “Miss us?” 

He turned toward the rest of them and beckoned. “Come say hi, guys.”

“I can’t,” Chenle said, his voice thick. He took a step backward. “I’m about to start ugly crying. Mark wouldn’t want to see me ugly crying.”

“Mark wouldn’t mind,” soothed Donghyuck, reaching out and taking the younger’s hand.

He guided him to sink to the ground beside the box. Chenle smeared his tears away with his sleeve. “H-Hi, Mark.”

Donghyuck nodded in encouragement.

“What should I say?” Chenle said nervously.

“Anything you want to say.” 

And it seemed Chenle had a lot. He told Mark so many things. The A he’d gotten on his chemistry paper last week, the churros that he and Jisung had made together last night, the squeakiness in his bedstead in his room at Renjun’s mansion. Chenle talked and talked and talked and talked, and as Jeno listened, his eyes grew hot with tears at how much Chenle clearly ached for their eldest brother.

Next was Jaemin, who told Mark about what had happened with his mom. She was in rehab now, and in a few months might be back on her feet.

When he was done, it was Jeno’s turn.

The floor of the columbarium was chilly underneath Jeno’s legs as he sat down in front of the box. 

“Hey,” he said, unsure of where to begin. “Mark.”

The photograph predictably did not respond. Jeno stared into Mark’s eyes.

_ White hands, whiter eyeballs, a hoarse voice begging through a camera _ —

No. No.

Jeno shook off the impending panic. Mark was more than what had happened to him. More than what Joo Geum had done to him. 

Jeno made it quick, but thoughtful. He told Mark about the situation with being Renjun’s secretary. He mentioned how he’d met Ten a few weeks back—he knew Mark would have been excited to hear that, since they’d both been big fans of the celebrity. Finally, he told Mark about how he himself was feeling lately.

“I’m doing good,” Jeno said. “Jaemin got me to stop drinking too many energy drinks. Donghyuck drags me out of the house to get fresh air every now and then. And my coworkers, Huang’s staff, are really cool and friendly to me. So I hope you know I’m doing good these days and I’m taking care of myself.”

Then it was Donghyuck’s turn. Without him having to prompt them, the rest of the boys stepped out of the room to give him some privacy. They all knew that Donghyuck had loved Mark in a different way than the rest of them—they respected that. Donghyuck offered a small smile of gratitude as they exited to wait in the hallway.

After they’d closed the door behind them, Chenle pulled out his holo-phone and slouched into a chair. Jeno tried not to pay attention to him as he too sat down and tried to look indifferent. 

Jaemin nudged him, then cast a pointed look at Chenle.

“What?” Jeno whispered.

“You know what,” Jaemin whispered back.

“But I don’t?”

“I’m sick of you two fighting. Fix it.”

Jeno cast a dubious look over at the teenager, who was resolutely ignoring the world.

“I’ll pass,” Jeno mumbled. “Another day.”

“Like hell you will,” Jaemin hissed. “Keep this up and you’ll  _ really _ lose him.” He raised his voice. “I’m going to use the bathroom, alright? Be back in twenty minutes!”

Without waiting for either of their answers, he turned and left. 

_ Ugh,  _ Jeno thought, watching his friend disappear down the hallway. “Twenty minutes,” he muttered. “Who uses the bathroom for twenty minutes?”

Chenle’s gaze stayed on his phone. 

Jeno couldn’t remember a time they’d fought this badly. He wondered if at this point there was even anything left to say.

He cleared his throat. “We need to talk.”

“Do we?” Chenle’s response was immediate, brusque. “Nah. I’ll  _ pass _ .”

Jeno winced at being shut down so fast. “Come on, Chenle. Don’t do this to us.”

“That’s rich, coming from the guy who started it.”

“What? Started it? Don’t act like a middle schooler.”

“Well, maybe if you stop treating me like one,” Chenle said, his eyes glued to his phone.

Jeno fought the urge to rip the device away. “Since when do I treat you like one?”

Chenle shrugged. “Beats me.”

“No, wait. This is a serious question.”

“And I gave you a serious answer. I don’t know how long it’s been going on but I bet for a while. Exhibit A: how you thought I was too immature to handle the truth of what happened to my own brother.”

Jeno’s mouth dried up.  _ Too immature? _

“What?” 

“ _ Yes.  _ I’ve always been your kid brother.” Chenle sounded angry, but more weary than so. “Just your kid brother. Someone whose opinion doesn’t even matter. I’m so sick of being treated like an idiot, Jeno, and it’s about time you caught on.”

“ _ That’s _ what you think this whole thing is all about?” Jeno asked slowly, in amazement.

A snort. “Well, what else could it be about?” 

For a long time, Jeno was silent.

Chenle glowered at his phone.

_ There is a lot to say,  _ Jeno thought.  _ I thought there wasn’t anything left but holy fuck, there’s a lot. _

Finally, Jeno spoke up.

“Nightmares.”

No reply.

“I had so many of them,” Jeno said, uncertainly putting words out into the silence between them. “After I learned about what happened to Mark, I had so many nightmares and I was furious all the time. I could barely go like five minutes without thinking about it. The serial killer—I don’t know how, but she got my number, and she used it to send me a video _.  _ A video of him.” Jeno swallowed. “Him being tortured _. _ ”

Chenle looked up.

Jeno continued. “I was so consumed with anger. So  _ consumed _ by it. I couldn’t handle it. I had panic attacks, I barely slept, I fucked up my body with caffeine to stall the nightmares, and I thought—” He looked down at his hands. “I thought I was losing my mind. I thought I’d die of sleep deprivation, the way Mark had.”

There was the rustle of Chenle getting up. For one panicked moment, Jeno thought he had walked away.

Then he heard him sink into the chair beside him.

“Hey,” Chenle said softly.

But now it was Jeno who was avoiding his gaze. “My whole life had turned into a nightmare. I didn’t want the same thing to happen to you. I wanted to protect you from that. Do you understand? It—it wasn’t because I thought you were too  _ immature _ to handle it, I swear I’ve never seen you as inferior or insignificant to me in any way—”

“Jeno.”

Jeno looked up with wide, fearful eyes. “You believe me, right?”

“Yes. I do. What you said makes sense.” Chenle took a deep breath. “But even so, you should have _said_ _something_.”

“I know, but I just—”

“No. No buts. You should have told me. So that I could have _helped_ you, Jeno. You didn’t have to have that burden all alone.” Chenle took his shoulder. “Do you understand? I’m so . . . so fucking horrified that you thought you had to deal with this by yourself.”

There it was.

It was like he’d pulled back the blanket covering Jeno’s eyes.  _ Of course. _ All this time, Jeno had thought the distance he’d formed between them had been something necessary to keep them safe, when it had only led to unnecessary pain.

“I’m sorry for being such a dick to you,” Chenle said, squeezing Jeno’s shoulder. “I said some awful shit. I didn’t mean any of it.”

“I knew you didn’t,” Jeno choked. “Now—now give me a fucking hug.”

Chenle slipped his arms around Jeno’s neck. The two brothers held each other, emotions connected, their distance finally breached. When Chenle tucked his head under Jeno’s chin Jeno blinked back tears.

“No more secrets, okay?” Chenle said as they pulled apart. “No more trauma.”

“No more,” Jeno agreed. 

A satisfied atmosphere filled the air. 

And now, finally, with the wall between them lifted, Jeno felt free to ask the question that’d weighed on his mind for the past few weeks. 

“So are you and Jisung dating, or. . . ?”

Chenle’s eyebrows shot up. “What? What kind of a question is that? Jeno, we just had a big sappy bro hug moment.”

“Yes,” Jeno said, smiling, “and now I’m transitioning away from the sappy bro hug moment. Are you and Jisung dating?”

The answer came too fast. “We’re not.”

“So you are,” Jeno breathed. “Donghyuck bet twenty dollars on it.”

“No! What? He bet on it? Against whom?” A huff. “You guys shouldn’t be so invested in my love life.”

“Oh?” Jeno leaned forward in interest. “Love life?”

“Ugh, it’s not—” Chenle looked abashed. “I didn’t mean to call it that.”

“Aha.” Jeno wore a satisfied look. “It was Jaemin who Donghyuck bet against. Jaem guessed that you might be aro, since you’ve never seemed to have a crush before.”

“I thought I was aro,” Chenle mumbled. “But lately, I . . . I just dunno.”

Jeno shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. It’s all just labels. Take your time.”

“On a different subject . . .” Chenle looked up at him, with telltale doe eyes. “Jisung asked me to get ice cream with him tomorrow after school. Can I go?”

Jeno laughed, although a part of him was secretly touched that Chenle still thought to ask for permission for these things. “How is that a different subject?” 

“I need money. It’s one of the biggest ice cream shops in the contempire and Jisung and I each want to get four scoops.”

“Why don’t you both just share the same four scoops?” Jeno quirked an eyebrow. “The economically and romantically conscious choice.”

Chenle groaned and buried his head in his hands. “I knew you would make a joke like that.”

“Relax, relax, I’ll get you the money,” Jeno said. The perks about being Renjun’s secretary: free board, free food, and a healthy paycheck. “If you want, I can give you double, so you can be cute and pay for Jisung too—”

“Agh, stoppit—oh, hi Jaemin.” Chenle waved at the older boy, who was running down the hallway.

Jaemin looked out of breath. “Guys guys guys guys guys  _ guys _ —”

“You’re back!” Jeno got to his feet, knowing Jaemin would be elated to hear that he and Chenle had finally made up.

But the exclamation died on his lips when he saw Jaemin’s face was white as a sheet. 

“Guys, you won’t believe what I just saw,” he hissed. “In the men’s room. There was—there was someone weird there.”

“What?” Chenle stood up too. “What happened?”

“He—” Jaemin shook his head. “He . . . that person . . . he looked just like—just like—”

He cut off.

“Like who?” Jeno said.

“I think he’s right behind you,” whispered Jaemin.

Fear licked Jeno’s spine. He and Chenle turned at the same time.

A stranger was standing behind them in the hallway. He was hooded and dressed in rags, looking every bit the homeless wanderer, and he smelled like something that had died. 

“Can we help you?” Chenle said, stepping up to be the cordial one.

The stranger lowered his hood. Jeno forgot how to breathe.

Because it wasn’t a stranger at all.

It was Mark’s face, staring back at him.

###

“Holy shit,” Chenle breathed.

The stranger with Mark’s face blinked. “I’m . . . I don’t really . . .” He coughed. “I came here to see the columbarium?”

It was right then that Donghyuck chose to exit from the columbarium room, dusting his hands off. “Okay, guys, I’m all done. Want to get some pizza before we go back to Huang’s? You know I’m always a hoe for pepperoni and mushrooms—oh.” He noticed the stranger. “Who’s this?”

The stranger turned to face him. “My name is—”

He was cut off by Donghyuck’s horrified shriek. He scrambled to stand next to Jaemin, clutching his arm as support, still screaming his head off and unable to look away from the person standing in front of him who was exactly identical to Mark.

“Who are you? What are you?  _ What are you? _ ” He pointed a shaking finger in his direction.

“I’m . . .” The stranger looked at a loss. “I don’t think I have a good answer to that.”

Jeno was reeling. Even his voice sounded just like Mark’s.

“Do you know who we are?” Chenle demanded. “Why do you—and Mark—why do you look like—this isn’t funny. This isn’t funny at  _ all _ .”

“I’m not trying to be funny.” The stranger shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. “And I don’t know who you guys are. It seems like . . . maybe you know who I am, though? I don’t know—I’ve had some amnesia—”

“A  _ ghost _ !” wailed Donghyuck. “It’s a ghost! It’s a motherfucking ghost!”

Jaemin backed away from the stranger. “I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Me neither,” said the stranger, sounding entirely earnest. “I just got off the train. I don’t know where I am other than this is Los Angeles, right? L.A.?”

“Where did you ride the train from?” Jeno said, cautiously.

“New Chicago.”

_ New Chicago _ .  _ Operation Phoenix. _

“Don’t freak out,” said the stranger, as if they weren’t doing exactly that. “Do you guys know anyplace I can find a free shower?” A sheepish laugh, again, one that sounded so agonizingly similar to Mark’s.”

Donghyuck fainted.

Jaemin grunted under the weight of his now unconscious friend. Chenle hurried to help lower him safely down to the floor.

“Let’s carry him to the car. I’ll drive us back to the mansion,” Jeno said, not taking his eyes off the stranger. “And . . . you. Sir. Would you mind coming with us, too? We . . . we have a lot of questions for you.”

###

The intimidating blond boy and his intimidating companions drove Mark to a very intimidatingly tall mansion in which they sat him in front of an imposing, lavender-haired bachelor who looked so expensive he probably had more net worth in his fingernail than did Mark in his entire body.

“Mark Lee,” Mark said. It was the umpteenth time he had introduced himself, yet the reactions never changed: every single person in the room stiffened. “That’s who I am.”

“So that’s who you think you are,” said Lavender, with a thoughtful voice.

The six of them had been sitting in this office for the better part of an hour, Mark across the desk from Lavender and Blond. The three other boys, whom Mark had mentally named Boys A, B, and C, sat side by side in a row, with various attitudes toward Mark: Boy A was glaring at him, Boy B was gaping at him, and Boy C was avoiding his gaze entirely.

“Tell us the story again,” Boy A suddenly said.

“He’s told it twice already, Na,” said Lavender.

“But I want to hear it  _ again _ .”

Mark shifted uncomfortably. He hadn’t liked retelling the experience of waking up in a coffin, and he didn’t really want to do it again.

“What is so hard to understand about Operation Phoenix, Na?” Lavender said.

“Excuse me?” Boy A nearly shouted. “Zombies? Revival from the afterlife? Is there even anything  _ easy _ to understand about those things?”

“Use your inside voice, please,” said Lavender, closing his eyes and massaging his temples.

“I still don’t really get it,” spoke up Boy B. He was the youngest of them all, and had fluffy hair and wide big eyes. “First I thought Mark died in a car crash. That was hard enough to get over. Then I find out he’s actually been murdered by serial killers, which was much harder to get over. But then he shows up at his own columbarium? And he’s actually  _ not dead _ ? Like, he supposedly never died in the first place?”

“He did die,” said Blond. “I saw it.” He held up his holo-phone. “Via video.”

There was a shiver in the room. Apparently Mark was not the only one disturbed by the story Blond had told ten minutes earlier: that he had witnessed Mark slowly lose his sanity at the hands of a psychotic serial killer.

“Well, first off, I went to the columbarium because it made sense to go there,” Mark supplied his reasoning. “After all, I heard it’s the only one in the Los Angeles contempire and I thought that in the case that I had had a family in this area, they probably would have put up a niche for me.”

“How did you know how to come to this area?” said Lavender, steepling his fingers over the desk. “I know Joo Geum is based in New Chicago. That is quite far away.”

Mark lifted his arm and pulled back his sleeve, exposing the LA tattoo. “This is what gave me the hunch to come here.”

A choked noise came from the left. It was Boy C, who was staring at the tattoo on Mark’s wrist with an acute expression of utter heartbreak on his face.

Self-consciously Mark shook his sleeve back down over his arm.

“So you guys are telling me that you know who I am?” he said. “Because I’d be really glad to hear that. Like, really, really glad.”

“We’re not sure exactly who you are,” started Lavender.

“Are you kidding me?” Boy A jumped to his feet. “He looks just like Mark! Talks like Mark! Walks like Mark!”

“But  _ isn’t _ Mark,” Blond said quietly. “Look at him. He has no idea who we are.”

Lavender leaned forward, scrutinizing Mark. “Do you really have no recollection of any of these people?” 

“Not the slightest,” Mark confessed. “None of you have even told me your names yet.”

At that, Lavender honestly looked surprised. “You don’t know who I am?” He nudged the name plaque on his desk; it had three characters in a foreign language with characters that had too many strokes for Mark to keep track. “I’m Huang Renjun. Mob boss.”

The rest of the boys introduced themselves, with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Trying to commit them to memory, Mark repeated each name as they went. In the end, he was disappointed that they hadn’t thought to introduce themselves in terms of who they were supposed to be to him. Siblings? Friends?

_ It’s like they expect me to remember it on my own,  _ Mark thought, and felt, not for the first time, endlessly frustrated. 

“So what’s going to happen now?” the boy called Chenle said.

“Well, Mark Lee here is going to become a big deal in the world of underground crime,” said Renjun. “He’s the first legitimate evidence that Operation Phoenix has been a success. From my intel, most of the people resurrected end up being more animal than human—the feds and the SKS would go nuts if they knew Mark was sitting in this room right now, talking and walking.”

“I don’t feel like an animal,” Mark said. 

“Because you aren’t. Something went wrong with you.” Renjun narrowed his eyes. “And I’m going to find out what. So you’re going to stay in my residence until I do that. I hope you have no qualms about that?”

Mark’s heart leapt at the thought of sleeping in a warm bed tonight. Or better yet—a  _ shower _ . “No qualms. None at all.”

The boy called Donghyuck made a strangled noise, stood up, and fled the room, letting the door bang shut. Startled, Mark stared after him. 

“Is he okay?”

“I doubt it,” said the boy named Jaemin, with a small sigh, standing up as well. “None of us are okay. I’m sorry, Mark, but you’re kind of a lot to take in.”

“I must smell terrible,” Mark said mournfully, looking down at his clothes. He hadn’t changed his clothes since he’d woken up, and that had been ages ago.

Jaemin was shaking his head. “No. I mean, yes, you do smell awful and you need a shower right away, but—what I mean, is . . . it’s a lot to take in, when someone you care about reappears in your life so suddenly.”

“Oh,” Mark said. “Right. I understand.”

_ Someone you care about _ , he thought.  _ I’m that. I’m someone people care about.  _

After they had all dispersed from that office and a friendly-looking lady had shown Mark to a guest room, Mark peeled off his dirty clothes, dumped them in the trash can, and stood in the shower, letting the dirt rinse off of his shoulders, mixing shampoos together from the great multicolored selection of available body washes, enjoying the feeling of becoming clean for the first time ever.

The whole time, he couldn’t stop thinking:

_ I was right. I am someone people care about. I found them. _

Any of those nights on the difficult route to Louisiana, it would have been so easy for Mark to just lie down on the park bench and quietly give up. To just throw in the towel and say,  _ That’s it, it’s obvious I’m alone in the world, I might as well just go back to being dead. _

“I’m not alone in this world,” Mark said aloud. “There’s people who care if I’m dead or not.”

The heat of the shower was nothing compared to the infinite warmth in his heart. 

###

Twelve years working in the assassins guild was long enough for Donghyuck to build some important connections. None of the other assassins could quite be called friends, but then again, they’d practically watched him grow up. It was hard not to be fond of someone you’d known for so long.

That was what made Donghyuck decide that it’d be fine if he crashed at Sicheng’s place for the night. 

He regretted his decision as soon as he walked into Sicheng’s apartment.

“Oh my  _ Jesus _ ,” Donghyuck exclaimed, in the doorway, staring wide-eyed at the sight of Sicheng half naked on the couch with someone Donghyuck didn’t know.

Sicheng sat up quickly, his face contorting into a scowl. His lips were noticeably swollen, his deep voice husky. “Donghyuck, what are you doing here?”

Donghyuck whirled away, to spare himself the sight of all of the older assassin’s bare skin. “I came to steal some of your juice boxes and maybe stay the night, that’s all!”

Sicheng murmured something to his partner—likely, an apology for the interruption—and swung his legs off the couch, leaning down to grab a discarded shirt from the floor. “Why didn’t you ring the doorbell?” he muttered.

“I’ve been here before. And you’ve been single for so long I didn’t think it’d be a problem. Also, it’s four in the afternoon! Ever heard of decency?” Donghyuck said. He peeked through his fingers. “Is it . . . clear now? Ugh. This sucks.”

“You suck.” Sicheng put on the shirt and crossed his arms. “You really do, Donghyuck.”

“Who is he?” asked the man in the couch, sitting up and regarding Donghyuck with a wary look. His hair was tousled and straw-yellow. 

“I’m Winwin’s side hoe,” Donghyuck said, with a smirk.

It didn’t have the desired effect. All the stranger did was frown. “Who’s Winwin?”

Donghyuck turned to Sicheng with an utterly scandalized look.

“Taeil, I can explain,” Sicheng said.

“Look, I can sense shit’s about to go down, and I am not here for it.” Donghyuck walked past them, heading for the bedroom. “You two carry on, hmm?”

He had half a mind to collapse into Sicheng’s bed and curl up and have a good long cry. Today had left him a wreck. And it was all one person’s fault.

Mark-not-Mark.

“No, wait,” Sicheng said, catching his hand. “Are you okay? You . . . No offense, but you don’t look okay.”

Donghyuck cast a look back to search his face.  _ Bless his heart, he looks actually concerned.  _ Even after Donghyuck had barged into his home. Even with his forgotten partner on the couch looking upset at being forgotten.

It was because of Sicheng’s kindness that Donghyuck decided not to dump his emotional distress on him. Sicheng didn’t deserve that.

“I’m fine,” Donghyuck made himself say, with a laugh. “And so is that guy, there. He’s mighty fine. You and he ought to straighten stuff out—don’t mind me. I’ll be in the bedroom.”

As he closed the door behind him, he heard Sicheng beginning to explain the situation to Taeil. That Donghyuck was like his little brother. That Winwin was just a name. Donghyuck kicked off his shoes and lay down onto Sicheng’s bed and stared at the ceiling with his arms spread out on either side of him.

He tried to go to sleep. He tried not to think about his problems.

But he’d been an insomniac since he was eight years old, and so sleep predictably did not arrive. In the meantime he idly thought about Taeil, about what his story must be. He was not an assassin—Donghyuck would have recognized him. The best possible situation was that his relationship with Sicheng was just a passing fling. The worst possible situation was that he was someone Sicheng had gotten serious about, had gotten attached to, but then hadn’t told him about him being an assassin or about Winwin being more than just a name.

Aliases were more than that.

Aliases were ultimatums.

Once you picked yours, you were in it for life. The leader of the guild had a rule: if you kill someone, you make sure that the last word they hear is your name. Not for their sake—they’d be dead—but for yours. A reminder to yourself that this person’s death was on your hands, that you were a villain, that you were not a normal person.

That was Irene’s mantra, the one that she had tattooed in Latin onto the back of her neck.  _ An assassin should never fool herself into believing she is a normal person. _

Donghyuck rubbed the tattoo on his own wrist.

He was thinking about Mark-not-Mark again. 

“Fuck,” he said, into the empty room. “Fuck this.”

Every cell in Donghyuck’s mind was occupied by the intensity of a single thought:  _ Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark Mark.  _ The stencil Mark. The fake Mark. The Mark-not-Mark, with his big eyes and awkward smile, who had politely repeated Donghyuck’s name in that achingly familiar voice—all without it being real. 

Donghyuck curled up onto his side and closed his eyes hard, wishing his mind would shut up so he could sleep a little.

###

_ Donghyuck. “Have you done this before?”  _

_ Mark. “Once. Twice. I don’t remember.” _

_ Donghyuck. “How do you not remember?” _

_ Mark. “It was never important enough.” _

_ Donghyuck. “What about me? Will you remember this with me?” _

_ Lips met lips. The kiss was slow fire. _

_ Mark leaned back long enough to murmur, “I could never forget you.” _

###

“I can tell you’re angry,” said Renjun, leaning against Jeno’s desk.

“Oh, can you?” Jeno said, swiping the next sheet off the stack of paperwork and filling it out so fast that his pen was audible, scritch-scratching against the paper in loud, obviously angry strokes. “Can you really, boss?”

Renjun tut-tutted, running his eyes over Jeno and his tense neck, his set jaw.  _ Damn, he looks kind of hot when he’s pissed.  _

Maybe on another day, Renjun would have told him this. He hadn’t been subtle about complimenting Jeno on all the little things he liked about him.

Not today, though. Today, there was too much at stake.

So what he said was, “You’re awfully saucy when you’re in a bad mood.”

“Guess who put me in that bad mood,” Jeno muttered, slapping the sheet of paper facedown onto the stack of completed work. “Just  _ guess _ .”

“Jeno. Look here.” Renjun shifted. How should he word this? “Because I am a mature boss who respects that sometimes he makes mistakes, I’ve come to visit your office so we can have a talk about things and clear up the less than amiable mood you’ve been emanating ever since you brought your older brother into my office this afternoon. But for the past twelve minutes I’ve been trying to get you to talk to me, and I’ve been getting nowhere.”

“Boss,” Jeno said, teeth clenched. “I’m trying to be respectful, but you’re making it kind of hard.”

Renjun backtracked. “Would you like me to give you more space, then? We can have this conversation tomorrow. Or next week. Or the week after.”

“If you had any intent on leaving this room today without having this conversation, you wouldn’t have walked in in the first place,” Jeno pointed out.

_ How is it that he knows me so well?  _ Renjun thought, and tried again. “I don’t like the idea of being on bad terms with you. I know that when bad feelings are left to simmer they simmer until they explode. Do you want to explode?”

“I feel like I’m about to.” 

“And you have every right to be angry.”

It seemed that that validation was enough. Jeno stood up and faced Renjun with a scowl. “Yeah. I do. I hecking do! How long did you know that Mark wasn’t really dead? He says it’s been  _ weeks _ since he left New Chicago. Have you known about this for that long?”

“I have.”

“Then why didn’t you—”

“I knew you would react like this, that’s why.”

“That’s a stupid reason.” Jeno crossed his arms. “Tell me the real reason.”

Renjun hesitated. “I’ve only known you for a couple months, Jeno.”  _ Or at least, that’s how long  _ you _ think it’s been.  _ “So honestly, if I told you the real reason, you’d be confused.”

“Why? You don’t think I can handle it?”

“I don’t think you’d  _ understand _ it,” Renjun corrected.

“Try me.” 

Renjun rubbed the pendant around his neck.  _ I didn’t want you to be worried. Even though I’ve been trying my best not to seem like I care about you, I still do.  _ “I wanted to get a handle on the situation before I divulged it. What you didn’t know wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Yeah, but—” Jeno struggled for a retort, but the fight seemed to deflate out of him before he could find one. He sank back into his chair. “God. It’s hard to be mad at you when I can understand your motivation so well,” he muttered. 

The tension in Renjun’s gut unravelled. “Exactly? See, I’m not an entirely bad guy,” he said, with a dry smile.

Jeno lay his cheek down onto the tabletop. “I’m . . .” He exhaled. “You know, I’m sort of worried you’ll fire me for yelling at you just now.” 

“You hardly yelled at me. You even censored your profanity.”

Jeno’s lips lifted into a small smile. “Yeah. True. But also . . . you can’t really fire me, can you? With my contract, and everything.”

“You’re stuck with me, yes, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“That’s not how I would phrase it. I don’t feel like I’m stuck with you.”

“Oh? Do you enjoy my company, then?” Renjun said.

“Sure I do, boss.”

“Don’t lie to my face, Lee.”

“I’m not lying to your face, boss.”

This was what Renjun liked. This easy back-and-forth banter, dry as it was. “Oh? Prove it.”

Jeno laughed. “How am I supposed to do that?”

Renjun seized the chance. “Have dinner with me? There’s a new diner down at the faux pier, if you’re in the mood for seafood.”

The offer was a bold move. Renjun had never made it straightforward like this—usually, he insinuated that  _ he _ was in the mood for something, and Jeno would inadvertently take the bait and helpfully suggest they go out someplace and get it.

“Seafood. . .” Jeno sat up. “Mark liked seafood a lot. His favorite was shrimp. He never ate the shells.” 

“I eat the shells,” Renjun said, because he didn’t know what to say, and also Jeno looked sad. 

Jeno looked at him then. His face flickered in some odd expression—almost as if he weren’t really seeing Renjun, instead watching a short inexplicable invisible film flash by his eyes. 

It wasn’t the first time this had happened. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Jeno said, blinking, and just like that, the episode was over. “I just . . . I think I daydream a lot.”

“Daydream about what?” Renjun said, so, so carefully.

“You,” Jeno said, seemingly without thought. Then his eyes widened and his hand flew up to cover his mouth. “Oh. Wow, I said that out loud, didn’t I? I wasn’t—urgh, please don’t get the wrong idea.”

Renjun fought a smile. “No worries.”

“It’s not that it’s about  _ you _ ,” Jeno continued hurriedly. “It’s just like, sometimes you’re  _ there _ ? I mean, I think it could be you, but I can’t really tell for sure. It’s like this big tangle of aesthetics that just kind of smush their way into my mind at random times and I have no idea why.” He sighed. “Ack. God, I can’t believe I’m rambling to you about my weird-ass brain.” 

Renjun made a mental note to ask Kunhang what the symptoms were for epilepsy, if that was the case here. “No worries,” he said firmly. “You can ramble to me about whatever you like.”

_ There _ . There was Jeno’s smile, with those two crescent eyes, their full blinding beauty aimed right at Renjun. Renjun’s throat suddenly dried up.

He swallowed and tore his gaze away. “Well, there’s no reason why you should daydream about shrimp when you can eat it in reality. Let’s go.” He started for the door. Jeno got up and followed him. 

Their dinner that night at the diner was characterized mostly by Jeno eating, Jeno laughing, Jeno sheepishly ordering a second portion, Jeno engaging in that easygoing light-hearted conversation that he perpetuated without a second thought, and Renjun trying his best not to smile the whole time. 

_ Get a grip,  _ he thought to himself.  _ Get a fucking grip, would you? Stop this foolishness. _

The scary part that he wasn’t sure he wanted to. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know if you enjoyed this chappie hwee hwee hwee. Stream Kick it <3 Stay safe, drink water! 
> 
> ~ Yerin 040720


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think this chapter is the longest one yet, but only because i’m a hoe for side plots and accidentally almost made the whole chapter about the background relationships (whoops) (I’m weak for markhyuck, what can I say).
> 
> Once again, i love my beta who thinks she's just a mere proofreader when she's actually super helpful and also my favorite person on her side of the pacific <3
> 
> cw: there’s a panic attack starting at “the office floor was cold” and then ending at “and he opened his arms wider”. There’s description of very very mild self-harm as well. 

Dongyoung didn’t know how long it took to get used to a foreign country, but he did know that it was supposed to be difficult.

“Is it?” his boyfriend, Yuta, asked him one day, when they were sitting on Dongyoung’s bedroom, piles of highlighters and bright white flashcards all around them. They were in the middle of practicing vocabulary. “Is it difficult?” 

“No,” Dongyoung said, but he raised his arms toward the closest stack of flashcards in a gesture of defeat. “But look. A hundred centimeters tall. Of just study paper.”

Yuta laughed. “ _Study paper._ ” 

Dongyoung poked him in the side. Yuta wasn’t much better than him at English, yet he still liked making fun of Dongyoung’s mistakes. Dongyoung supposed it was because Yuta didn’t quite have any else to make fun of—especially when their community was basically just exceedingly talented mafia members, trilingual in English, Mandarin, _and_ Korean. Doyoung had once overheard their boss Taeyong even speak Spanish, in a phone call with a Mexican benefactor.

“Also, you need say it in inches,” Yuta said. “You know one hundred centimeters in inches? Or feet?”

Dongyoung wrinkled his nose as he gave his best guess. “Three feet. Four. Ugh, American system too hard.”

“ _The_ American system _is_ too hard.”

Dongyoung showed him his tongue. “Shut up.”

“Hey, I taught you those word, you can’t say it back,” Yuta said, smirking. He shifted his position, his wrist hitting the base of a flashcard stack, and accidentally brought a flurry of index cards raining down all around him. What followed was a string of Japanese curse words, most of which Dongyoung understood only because Yuta liked to curse so much.

Then again, at the same time, it wasn’t that he _knew_ exactly what the cuss words meant—they didn’t have precise Korean translations. Dongyoung could just sense their meanings, with some integral part of himself. 

It was like his relationship with Yuta. Their interactions were characterized by broken English and, on lazy days, an automated translator app on one of their phones that took a cumbersome amount of time switching from Japanese to Korean and vice versa. But in the end, none of it mattered—because Dongyoung could _sense_ Yuta’s heart. And Yuta could sense his.

They knew each other, without having to know each other’s languages. 

“Come here,” Yuta said.

Dongyoung blinked, hopeful. “Study break?” 

Those were his favorite two words.

Yuta reached for him, sliding his fingers into Dongyoung’s hair and tugging him closer. “Study break,” he agreed, and leaned in to capture Dongyoung’s lips with his own.

With kissing came no language barriers. 

###

If someone had told Jaemin two months ago that he would become a hotshot in the strip club, he would have laughed in their face.

But that was two months ago.

All of Jaemin’s nights these days were filled to the brim with customers. It seemed everyone wanted a piece of him—when he asked Ten if this was normal, Ten just laughed, shrugged, tipped his bowler hat, and said, “No, but does it matter?”

It didn’t matter. Jaemin didn’t mind being vied over—it was admittedly flattering.

His coworkers congratulated him for his successful debut in the industry. The camaraderie in this workplace was impressive. It was unlike anything Jaemin had come across before: the strippers shared hair spray, knew each other by name and by phone number, and looked out for each other. After hours, they often invited Jaemin to go for drinks—a couple weeks ago, he accepted the invitation.

The night had been a whirlwind of fun. Just a small group of loose friends whose lives were all connected by their shared job, one of the most peculiar industries in the world, all hanging out to enjoy a night full of freedom and gossip and laughter.

“ _I don’t tip, I’d rather take you out for dinner_ ,” Solar had parroted a patron. “Damn, you should have _seen_ how fast I spun on my stilettos and walked away from that bitch.”

“Oooh, ooh, yesterday a guy tried to pirate a fifty from my stage,” guffawed a coworker, Wheein, over her tequila. “Honey, I chased him _down_. Gave him my wrath like it was no one’s business.”

Jaemin had laughed so hard he’d snorted his sparkling water up his nose.

Lately, though, the club had been less of a destination for fun and more of a getaway. It was mostly because of Mark. 

In the days after Mark arrived, Jaemin visited the club for longer periods of time, danced harder than he had ever before, and earned absurd amounts of money. Almost every night he visited the 24-hour mall after work, where he indulged in what he liked to regard as retail therapy—he bought fancy lotions for Lami, coffee mugs for his dad, and a new holo-phone for himself. The receipts were so long that he had to fold them eight times to fit into his wallet. 

It didn’t matter. He welcomed anything that could occupy his attention without it inevitably sliding back to Mark.

Tonight, though, was a little different than normal. Johnny pulled him aside as soon as he walked through the door.

“You’ve got a private customer,” Johnny said. 

Jaemin tilted his head. “What does that mean?” 

He had done lap dances before, even though lap dances weren’t necessarily private, since everyone else in the club could see it.

“It means that someone paid out their ass to get you in a room by themselves,” Johnny said. Jaemin made a face and Johnny hurried to finish. “No, no, not a room as in a room for sex. That’s not what we do. It’ll just be sixty minutes where you dance a little, talk, that’s all. There will of course be cameras and I’ll be monitoring the whole time like I always do. All you have to do is make sure the customer is having a good time.”

“Right,” Jaemin said, swallowing. “Okay.”

Johnny raised an eyebrow. “I can decline the customer, if you want.”

“Did they already pay? How much was it?”

Johnny told him.

Jaemin’s eyes watered at the cost. “No way I’m declining that.”

“That’s what I thought,” Johnny laughed, clapping him on the back. “Alright, go get changed, the customer’s waiting.”

When Jaemin entered the locker rooms, the other guys there congratulated him. Apparently they’d heard the news of the private booking as well.

“You look so nervous,” laughed Jackson. “Don’t be. It’s not dangerous.”

“I know,” Jaemin said. He’d personally witnessed Johnny and Ten let out customers for being too rowdy, too touchy, or for pulling out their phones to take contraband pictures. 

“I still remember my first private patron,” recalled one of the other guys, Jinyoung. “Middle-aged lady. I gave her a dance, but other than that, she spent the rest of the hour telling me about her divorce and her sexual secrets. It wasn’t terrible.”

“I just . . . I don’t know, like, what if I mess up?”

“Nah!” Bambam was pulling on his fishnet gloves. “I’ve seen you, kid. You’re great at talking. That’s the thing—you earn the most if you’re good at talking, _connecting_ with people, not necessarily just being the prettiest face on the stage.”

“Although I’ve got the prettiest face too, right?” Jaemin batted his lashes.

A balled-up fishnet glove hit him in the shoulder. “Not as good as mine.”

Jaemin laughed and tossed it back. “Oh? Borrow my eyeshadow any day and you’ll see what it’s like to get those tens.”

It was ten dollars for a lap dance. Ten had likely priced it that way just for the pun. 

“Jaemin? Are you in there?” Johnny poked his head into the locker rooms. “Hurry up.”

“Coming,” Jaemin called, throwing on a mesh shirt. There was a chorus of _good luck_ s from the guys in the room—he sent them a grateful look before he left.

Johnny led Jaemin down the hallway toward the plasma sign that read _Private Rooms_. They stopped in front of the opaque door.

“How are things going with Ten?” Jaemin asked, because he was nervous and wanted to distract himself from walking into that room.

“With Ten? Oh, he’s fine,” Johnny said.

“He still flirting with you?”

Johnny cracked a smile. “Flirty as ever. I wonder if it’s his celebrity status going to his head. He’s got a painfully big ego.” 

“So you’re still blind to the way he looks at you?”

“There’s nothing to be blind to! Trust me, I know Ten. He practically drips affection. It’s nothing special.”

Jaemin shook his head wryly. “If you say so.”

“There’s just one extra detail I have to warn you about,” Johnny said. “There’s . . . uh, two private customers.”

“Two? Okay,” Jaemin said. “Are they back to back?” 

“They’re . . . they booked the slot together. They’ll attend it together.”

“Wait but doesn’t that defeat the purpose of a private session?”

Johnny shrugged. “I don’t know. You’ll get the same amount of pay as you normally would. Just interact with both of them the way you would if there were just one of them there.”

When Jaemin entered the room, he was surprised to find the two patrons already kissing. They were both male. One of them wore a gleaming silver necklace, and the other had thick hair woven through with small mini braids.

The two men broke apart when Jaemin cleared his throat. They didn’t seem the least apologetic at having been walked in on—they just clasped each other’s hands and gave Jaemin matching smiles.

“Hello,” Jaemin said, unsure of how to proceed from here. 

“I’m Yuta,” said the one with the necklace. “This is Dongyoung.”

Jaemin nodded. “Pleased to meet you.” He tilted his head, gave them one of his trademark crooked smiles. “I’ve never danced with anybody half as good-looking as either of you. Who should I start with first?”

Yuta laughed. “Don’t worry. We don’t need dance.”

Dongyoung nodded. “Just curious,” he said.

“Curious as to how the club works?” Jaemin said, picking up on their accents—they were foreigners. “Well, you’re in luck. Let me show you.”

He shouldered one arm out of his jacket. The two men shook their heads, held up their hands in a gesture for him to stop. “No, no, we are okay,” said Yuta.

Jaemin paused, confused. No one had ever said _no_ to him taking off his clothes.

“Just curious,” Dongyoung said again. “Ten. He . . . brags about you, a lot.”

“Oh?” Jaemin said. His relationship with Ten had been deepening over the past few weeks, even so far as to Ten taking him out one night for drinks and giving Jaemin a tearful, drunk explanation of how he was horribly, wholeheartedly in love with Johnny, who was in turn horribly and wholeheartedly oblivious.

Yuta grinned. “Every day. _My new dancer. My best dancer. My ace._ ” His imitation of Ten was scarily accurate. “He even mention you on social media. I saw it.”

“ _Oh_?” Jaemin said, his mind shooting to Jeno, whom he knew watched every single one of Ten’s social media updates. Nervousness slicked the back of Jaemin’s neck. There was no way Jeno could put together the pieces and discover Jaemin’s involvement with the strip club . . . could he?

“We come to talk,” Dongyoung said, tilting his head. “With you. The boss said we do.”

“Who’s your boss?” Jaemin said distractedly.

“Lee Taeyong,” yawned Yuta. “You know him, hmm?”

“Kinda,” Jaemin said, shifting from foot to foot. He knew Taeyong was Renjun’s rival in business. _Holy shit,_ he thought, _these two guys in front of me are mafia members. I was about to strip for mafia members._ “I mean, sort of. He sent you here? Why?”

“You live with Huang,” Yuta said. “No?”

“Boss wants us to ask how Huang doing,” said Dongyoung. “If he can control the . . . outbreak. Or not. Huang always avoids.”

“Avoids the boss,” agreed Yuta. “They don’t talk. Everyone is curious to see if he is control the outbreak, but no one knows.”

“And you’re coming to me about this? I don’t know anything,” Jaemin said. _Outbreak outbreak outbreak._ “Not anything about anything.”

Dongyoung narrowed his eyes. “You lie.”

“I do not lie,” Jaemin said, spreading his hands. “I can lie on this table here, if you want, and do some sexy grinding, but I’m not going to answer questions about my landlord that I don’t have answers for. Alright? You should find Huang himself and talk to him directly.”

Yuta shrugged. “Alright.”

Dongyoung’s whisper to Yuta was loud enough to be audible. “What is ‘grinding?’”

“Want me to show you?” Jaemin offered.

He _was_ being paid to dance, after all. 

But it seemed the two men weren’t interested in any of Jaemin’s charms. Yuta waved him away and as Jaemin left the room, he caught in the mirror the two men leaning in to share another kiss.

Jaemin shut the door behind himself. He stood in the hallway for a few minutes, collecting his wits. He got the feeling that the mafia members had lacked interest in the answers to their questions about Huang—likely, their boss had just instructed them to dig up some information on Huang, and since Jaemin worked at a strip club and also lived in Huang’s home, the pair had decided to pay Jaemin a visit and have fun while they were at it.

Jaemin shivered.

“Something’s going on,” he murmured to himself. “And I’ll bet it’s got something to do with zombies and Huang and shit. Next thing we know, the city’s overrun with the undead and there’ll be no one alive left for me to strip for.”

###

_“Violin?” Mark suggested. “Math competitions?”_

_“I’m not going to become a mathlete.” Chenle poked Mark’s arm with his floppy pseudoplastic ruler. “If I take up violin, I’ll be a true Asian nerd. Do you want me to be a true Asian nerd?”_

_“Nothing wrong with one of those,” Donghyuck said, pulling Chenle’s ruler away. “Mark’s one of those.”_

_“Right. In today’s modern society, races are obsolete anyway,” Mark said. “I think you’ve been reading too many of those books where there are like, racial stereotypes and stuff.”_

_“I have nothing against Asians,” Chenle said. “But I do have something against being lame. My oldest brother can ace the medical school entrance exam, his boyfriend can assassinate people, and what can I do? Recite poetry?”_

_“You can?” Mark said, looking impressed._

_“What about Jeno?” Donghyuck asked Chenle. “What can he do that makes you feel like you can’t measure up?”_

_“Hyuck, don’t encourage Chenle’s insecurity.”_

_Donghyuck ignored Mark. “Nono’s in the other room playing with Bongsik. He can’t hear you, Chenle. So tell me. All the tea.”_

_“I’m not insecure,” Chenle said. “I mean maybe I am. But just a little, okay? I’m_ — _I dunno, I feel like I’m like that one supporting character in the book who doesn’t have a special talent other than existing.”_

_“You’ve definitely been reading too much,” Donghyuck declared. “Now you’re even classifying your own worth in terms of how you compare to book characters. Chenle, those people aren’t real. The authors purposefully write them interesting so that they can sell books and make money. It’s all capitalism, you see.”_

_“Hyuck!” Mark admonished._

_“What?”_

_Mark sighed. Turned back to Chenle. “How about this. You’ve always wanted to play an instrument, right? Why don’t you pick something and join the school orchestra?”_

_It wasn’t a bad idea. Eventually Chenle settled on piano, and Mark bought him a cheap holo-keyboard that they put in the kitchen where Chenle would routinely perform every day after breakfast._

_Every time he finished a song, Mark would clap enthusiastically, and Chenle would smile and think that sure, piano was great. And he liked it. It was fun._

_But maybe all along, his real goal had just been to be good at something, so that Mark could be proud of him. Even if deep down, he knew Mark was proud of him no matter what._

###

It had been a couple days since Mark had met the boys, and he couldn’t deny how bone-weary it all made him.

Right now, he, Jisung, and Chenle were in the infirmary. Not because any of them were sick, but because Chenle had asked Jisung where they could find colored pencils and paper, and Jisung said Kunhang might have some.

“No!” Kunhang said, scandalized, clutching his set of high-quality gel pens. “This is the only thing I have. Ask Yangyang. He probably has some spare broken crayons under his bed, the heathen.”

Jisung sighed and reached into his backpack. “No, no, it’s fine, I think I’ve got some stuff we can use in here.”

They ended up using his dried-out markers to draw a map of the Los Angeles contempire onto the tape-connected backsides of his old geometry homework sheets. Mark sat cross-legged in front of the two high schoolers, who were sprawled out on their bellies on the floor, circling various destinations on the map.

“The library?” Chenle mused. “Or the high school?”

“Mark, did you go to our high school?” Jisung asked.

“I dunno,” Mark said.

“No,” Chenle said to Jisung, “he went to another one.” Chenle drew a decisive line through the map icon of the schoolhouse, then leaned over and circled a different schoolhouse icon. “This one. We’ll take him here.”

“What about his childhood home?” Jisung suggested. “That might work.”

“I don’t remember where I grew up,” Mark said.

“We _know_ that,” Chenle said, giving him a look both parts amused and weary.

Mark smiled awkwardly. “Yeah, yeah, I know.”

For the past few days, Chenle had been mercilessly finding new and creative ways to try and get Mark’s memory back. Mark still couldn’t believe that someone so energetic and optimistic could actually be related to him by blood. He was also still sort of in shock at the idea that he _had_ a brother in the first place. Not only that, but two. Jeno and Chenle were amazing.

Two brothers. It was an incredible, wonderful thought.

But he couldn’t help but feel guilty inside, like he hadn’t earned their affection.

Kunhang, the doctor, released a loud sigh from where he sat nearby on a swivel chair, his arms folded. “Remind me what you guys are doing, again?”

Chenle sat back on his heels and gestured with his marker at the map. “We have to take Mark places to get his memories back. That’s how it works.”

“Are you sure you know how amnesiacs work, though?” asked Kunhang. “Or are you going off your knowledge from the Hollywood movies?”

“I don’t think anyone really knows how my amnesia works,” Mark sighed. 

Not even science had an explanation. Every day, Renjun brought in a different crew of top-notch scientists cherry-picked from around the world. They brought Mark into an examination room and ran tests on him. But no matter how much cutting-edge technology they possessed, the crews exited the room with the same conclusion every time: that Mark was completely normal. 

“We still have to give everything a shot,” Jisung piped up.

“Exactly,” Chenle said. “And for your information, doctor, they’re not all Hollywood movies. I’ve watched plenty of indie movies before and they all say the same thing. You have to jog the amnesiac’s memory by taking them to places.”

Jisung bent back over the map. “Where else should we circle?”

“Maybe one of the basketball courts at the local park. Mark, do you remember how to play basketball?”

Mark mustered his best smile. “You could teach me.”

“So that’s a no,” Jisung said in dismay.

Not for the first time, Mark wondered why the pink-haired boy was so invested in gaining Mark’s memories back. As far as Mark knew, Jisung wasn’t related to him by blood at all.

“Maybe if Mark just _held_ a basketball, he’d remember,” Chenle was saying. He nudged Jisung. “You should see how good I am at basketball. I could knock your socks off.”

“I’ve seen you play before.” Jisung smiled. “You’re really good.”

“Bro, but that was just us messing around during recess. In a real game, I’m a literal beast.”

Mark watched Jisung laugh and nod, then repeat to himself in a small murmur, “Right . . . bro.”

His voice sounded strange. Wistful, even.

 _Aha_ , Mark thought. _Jisung wants to be brothers with Chenle, but he isn’t. So he’s helping me out with my memories so that he can get closer to Chenle._

“Have you guys asked Mark if he wants to do all of this stuff?” Kunhang spoke up from his swivel chair. “Running around town and all.”

“We won’t be running,” Chenle said. “We’ll be driving. I doubt Mark has forgotten basic motor skills like how to use a car.”

“You’re right, he probably hasn’t,” Kunhang said, resting his elbows on his knees and zeroing his gaze in on Mark. “But I want to hear Mark’s opinion on if he’s down for all of it.”

“Why wouldn’t he be?” Chenle said, uncapping his marker with his teeth and leaning over the map to circle another location. “Maybe the faux pier? He took me fishing there once—”

“Chenle,” Kunhang said, and his tone was uncharacteristically firm. It caused everyone else in the room to freeze. “Maybe the Mark you knew would have been fine driving you guys places. I get that.” Kunhang made a small gesture. “But things are a little different now. You can’t assume you know what Mark wants and how he thinks—you should remember to ask what he’s thinking.”

Chenle stared at him, looking a bit like a deer caught in the headlights. He set down his marker. “But I’m doing all of this for him in the first place.”

“I know,” Kunhang said, and his voice was back to soothing, calm honey. “I know that. But like I said, things are a little different than they were before. Mark is a little different than he was before.”

Chenle’s mouth opened, then shut. He cast a worried look in Mark’s direction.

“He’s still my brother, though,” Chenle said.

The words, unmistakably weighted with uncertainty, sank into the papery atmosphere of the room, and more than ever Mark wished he could step up and say _yes, yes, of course I am_.

But Mark didn’t like half-truths any more than he liked lies.

Mark swallowed. He changed the subject. “Maybe we can go places together tomorrow, alright?”

Chenle nodded, beginning to fold up the map. “Yeah, sure. It’s getting late. Jisung and I have homework to do.”

After they’d collected all the markers and cleaned up their space, and as Chenle was walking out of the room, Mark gave him a slightly apologetic smile. He _liked_ Chenle, he really did—the younger was hard to dislike, so easy and earnest and eager to help—and he didn’t want Chenle getting the wrong idea of how Mark thought of him. 

It was just that Chenle’s optimism to retrieve Mark’s memories was stifling, and Mark felt terrible inside, as if it was his fault for not being the same Mark as before. As if here he was, a brother returned from the dead, only to disappoint everyone who cared about him.

As Mark was leaving the infirmary, Kunhang caught his arm.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” Mark rubbed his face. “I think I’m just going to get some fresh air. You think Renjun would mind if I loitered in his gardens a little while?”

“Go right ahead,” Kunhang said. “The boss wouldn’t mind.”

With a sighed thank-you, Mark exited the infirmary and steadily wandered his way back to the front of the mansion. He pushed open the heavy front doors, shut them behind him, then walked forward and sank in a heap onto the grass.

The chilliness of the night air was welcoming, freeing the hot, trapped feeling in Mark’s lungs. He breathed deeply.

He didn’t notice the other figure sitting nearby until Dejun cleared his throat.

“Hello, Mark.”

Mark startled. “Oh my God,” he gasped, “you scared me.”

Dejun got up from where he was seated near the rose bushes and made his way over to Mark. Before he sat down, he stowed away the slim cylinder of the holo-cig he’d been smoking.

“What brings you out here?” Dejun said.

“My brothers.”

“Want to talk about it?”

Mark was about to decline before he remembered that Dejun had never known him prior to his death. Dejun would have no expectations for who he was supposed to be—the only Mark that he knew was this Mark, right now.

“Yeah,” Mark said. “Do you have some time?”

“I do. All I was doing out here was having a smoke anyway,” Dejun said, crossing his legs and getting into a more comfortable position. “Feel free to tell me anything. I am a very good listener.” 

“I . . .” Mark didn’t know what to say. There was so much to say, and all of it was glum. He tried not to sound super depressed when he said, “I don’t think they like me very much.”

Dejun hummed, a noncommittal noise.

“My brothers, I mean.”

“What makes you say that?” Dejun said.

“They can barely look at me. Donghyuck can barely stand to be in the same room as me. I don’t know anything about them except for the stories Chenle told me, and even then, that’s not the same as really _knowing_ them, is it?” Mark exhaled into the night. His breath puffed a cloud into the darkness; winter was nearly upon them, and the evening was just a little too chilly to be sitting out here on Huang’s front lawn, wearing only a thin long sleeve T-shirt.

Dejun didn’t seem to be bothered by the cold. Side by side, the two men made for a striking contrast: Dejun, with his fearsome turtleneck and stony demeanor, and Mark, with his messy hair and second-hand jeans.

The rose garden around them was gorgeous in every way, with the deep plum- and wine-colored flowers climbing the maze hedges. The depths of each blossom sparkled with the hidden diamonds that Mark knew were there. Jeno had told him the story of the rose fiasco.

Surrounded by an ocean of beautiful flowers and sitting next to a mafia member in front of a mafia mansion, Mark couldn’t help but feel out of place. 

“It sort of feels like I was reborn into the wrong world,” he said.

“Is that why you came out here?” asked Dejun. “To look upon the boss’s money roses and feel misplaced and pathetic?”

“No.” Mark looked at him quickly. “Am I pathetic?”

“Would you like an honest answer?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Dejun blinked. “Wait . . . are you—really?”

Mark laughed. “Why can’t a guy appreciate some honesty around here?”

“It’s just . . . it’s uncommon,” Dejun shrugged. “Usually, people become frightened when I ask them if they want an honest reply.”

“I dug myself out of my own grave,” Mark said. “I don’t think there are many things more frightening than that.” He leaned closer. “So tell me, what’s the answer? Do I seem pathetic to you?”

Dejun pursed his lips in thought.

The answer came sooner than Mark expected.

“No, you don’t.”

Mark’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh. Wow. Great, okay. That’s nice to hear.”

“How so?”

“I just—I dunno, I feel like you’d be the type to pity me for being bad at knowing who I am. Not that I’m saying you’re the type of person who pities people a lot.” Mark paused. “Not that pity is a bad thing—it’s just, I was reading through some of Renjun’s linguistic dictionaries the other day, and apparently pity is closely associated with arrogance? I dunno.”

Dejun was quiet. “. . . You call him Renjun,” he finally said. “You and the sun boy both.”

“Renjun is his name, though,” Mark said, confused by Dejun’s tone of wonder. “Right?”

“But it’s not,” said Dejun. “Not to me.” He gestured at the mansion. “You’ve met the nine sisters, and Kunhang, and Yangyang. We’ve known the boss for most of his life, and we consider him our friend, but the unfortunate truth is that the boss will likely never consider us anything more than circumstantial alliances.”

“No,” Mark said. He drew out the word in disbelief. “You guys mean something to him.” 

He’d seen the playful dialogue traded between the mafia employees. 

“Not enough for him to let us call him by his given name.”

“That . . . okay, that sounds like some cliché tsundere stuff. From a comic book, or something.” He’d read a couple of Jaemin’s mangas, the ones Jaemin had brought up as small talk during a strained lunch attempt to get to know Mark a little better.

Dejun laughed a little at that. It was a warm, gentle sound, welcome in this drafty night. 

“Can I tell you something?”

“Uh, sure.”

“You said you’re bad at knowing who you are,” Dejun said. “But I think everyone’s a little bit the same. So that’s why I don’t believe it’d be right for me to pity you for it.”

Mark mulled that over, hugging one of his knees to his chest. “But is everyone really like that, though? Does everyone feel like a nobody?”

“I didn’t tear out Joo Geum’s eyeballs for a nobody, Lee,” said Dejun. “That boy Jeno paid three times his own weight in gold to get you avenged.”

“But . . .” 

Mark made a small helpless gesture.

“But?”

“He didn’t do it for me,” Mark said. “He did it for the person I used to be. But I’m _not_ that person and now, all I am to them is a burden.”

“You’re not—”

“I am. I am, I am, I am.” Mark buried his face in his hands. “A person without their memories is not the same.” Last night, among countless nights before, he and Chenle had sat over cups of hot chocolate as the younger shared stories of how Mark had taught them basketball, Mark had punched the kid who bullied Chenle in first grade, Mark had baked lopsided cakes for their birthdays every year, Mark had worked three part-times to finance his college tuition. 

“Do you remember?” Chenle had leaned in, eyes wide. “Maybe? Just a little?”

Mark hesitated. It would have been so easy to just say yes. 

“No. I’m sorry. I don’t.”

Chenle nodded and drank his hot chocolate. After a long sip he smacked his lips determinedly. It seemed he wasn’t going to let up anytime soon.

Mark’s heart ached. _How much longer until you realize that to me, these stories will always just be stories?_

_To me, they will never be memories._

“Apologies if I become a bit philosophical,” said Dejun. “My theory is that people are made of stardust that never grows old and never dies, just is transferred from physical form to physical form between lifetimes.” He rested his hand on Mark’s knee. “You’re made of the same stardust as the old Mark. You don’t need to worry about feeling like an imposter. And you’re not to blame if the other boys treat you like one, because even if they do, it’s nobody’s fault here.”

“Nobody’s fault,” Mark echoed.

He leaned back, propping himself up on his wrists.

“I sort of like the sound of that.”

Dejun laughed softly. “Too many people believe there’s someone behind all of the bad things. But if you try to trace the trail of whose fault it was, you’ll end up wasting time.” He tilted his head up at the gray, starless sky. “Life is fast. We just take our lot and move on.”

Mark felt the prickle of the cold grass underneath his palms. _Just . . . just move on._ He weighed the thought over and over in his mind.

After their silence had stretched for a little while, Mark spoke up again.

“Who’s the sun boy?”

“Haechan,” Dejun said. “The assassin. You know him as Donghyuck.”

Mark sat up so fast he nearly choked on his own spit. “He’s an _assassin_?”

So far, all he’d seen of Donghyuck was the younger acting antsy around Mark, scooting away whenever he was near, avoiding him in the halls.

“I—holy shit,” Mark said. “I didn’t know that.” 

“He’s sitting on the other side of that door right now,” Dejun said, pointing behind them at the front door of the mansion. “I expect he’s debating whether or not to come out and talk to you. He might be waiting for me to leave.”

“Huh? What?” Mark twisted to look back at the door. “How do you know he’s there?”

“I can hear his breathing. Sometimes he shifts around.”

“Oh my God, you’re kidding.” Mark paused, strained his ears to listen. “I don’t hear anything.”

“You don’t have a trained ear like I do. I have the best hearing out of all of Huang’s men. It’s what makes me useful.”

“That’s crazy,” Mark said, mostly talking about the thought of Donghyuck sitting there behind the door this whole time. 

All of the sudden, the door slammed open, making Mark startle. Dejun remained unperturbed, even as Donghyuck stormed out of the mansion to stand in front of the two of them. 

“You exposed me,” Donghyuck said, accusing. 

“You should have expected it,” Dejun said, serene.

“I was planning to make a big grand entrance.”

“No, you were planning on getting up and walking off.”

“How do you know that?”

Mark watched the whole exchange with wide eyes. Dejun was an undisturbed wall, letting all of Donghyuck’s fire bounce off of him.

“You kept getting up and taking a few steps away, then pacing and sitting back down again,” Dejun said.

“Okay, _creep_ ,” Donghyuck gasped. “There’s no way your hearing can be that good.”

Dejun climbed to his feet and dusted off his pants. “If I recall correctly, you were the one who was eavesdropping on my conversation with Mark. So, really, who’s the creep here?”

Donghyuck spluttered.

Dejun gave him a beatific smile, then turned to nod at Mark in farewell.

“Talking to you tonight was nice.”

“Yeah . . . same here, I guess,” Mark said.

His eyes followed Dejun as he made his way back into the mansion and shut the door behind him.

That left Mark and Donghyuck alone together, which for as long as Mark could remember, had never happened before. The younger fidgeted, seemingly torn between looking at Mark and looking at his feet.

“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” he blurted.

Mark tilted his head. “But you were.”

Donghyuck deflated. “But . . . yeah, I was.” 

“Want to have a seat?” Mark asked, patting the spot beside him.

Donghyuck eyed it, then shook his head. “No, I’m incredibly high-strung right now. I don’t think I could sit still. Want to go for a walk, instead?”

 _High-strung_ , Mark thought. Chenle had told him next to nothing about what Mark’s relationship with Donghyuck had used to be. Mark had been grasping at straws this whole time, trying to figure out the boy—and it seemed that they were finally having a real conversation. One that was long overdue.

Mark got to his feet. 

“I don’t think Renjun would like it if I left the premises without one of his employees to chaperone me,” he said. “Says he doesn’t want spies from the other mafia boss accidentally catching sight of me and being like ‘holy shit, he’s supposed to be dead’ and all.”

Donghyuck snorted. “Let’s just walk around the gardens, then,” he said. “Never in my life have I seen such big fucking gardens.”

“Alright,” Mark said. “Let’s walk.”

They started off. 

###

Up on the two hundred sixty-third floor of the mansion, Chenle hung onto Jisung’s back, straining to peer through the window where they could see the small figures of Mark and Donghyuck out in the gardens.

“Your elbows are so bony,” Jisung complained, hefting Chenle higher.

“It’s not my fault your boss’s mansion windows are so damn high,” Chenle said, squinting through the glass panes. Then he squealed. Started frantically patting Jisung’s shoulder in his excitement. “Oh my God! They stood up! They’re taking a walk! The ship is sailing! Yes yes yes!”

“Why are we spying on them, again?” Jisung said, although he certainly wasn’t protesting to having his classmate clinging to him like a koala. Chenle’s body was warm and lightweight, his torso pressed against Jisung’s back and his chin jostling against the top of of Jisung’s pink hair.

“You don’t know what Mark and Donghyuck were _like_ before Mark died, Jisung.” Chenle released a soft sigh and slid off Jisung’s back, sinking to the floor in a contented heap. “They were so in love, I could practically hear a corny K-drama ballad soundtrack strike up in the background every time they looked at each other.”

 _I hear a K-drama ballad soundtrack whenever I look at you_ , Jisung thought, gazing at the other boy laying like a starfish out on Jisung’s bedroom floor. All around him was a litter of open textbooks, chewed pencils, and wrinkled sheets of graph paper. Jisung’s room had never been in such a state of chaos—at least, not before Chenle had come into his life. 

He didn’t mind.

“I think they can fall in love again,” said Chenle.

“Who?”

“Mark and Donghyuck.” Chenle shrugged, as best as he could while lying down. “I think they’ll fall in love again. You know? Apart from the memory loss, Mark acts like the same person he was before—still folds his pizza in half when he eats it, still sneezes super loud like an old man, still wets his toothbrush before and after putting the toothpaste on it.” Chenle threw Jisung a quick suspicious look. “You do that too, right?”

“The toothpaste stuff? Hell yes I do,” Jisung said.

“Good,” Chenle said with a serious nod. “I can’t be friends with someone who doesn’t wet their toothbrush after putting the toothpaste.”

 _I don’t want to be friends,_ Jisung almost said, before realizing that might sound unfriendly without saying the other half: _I wanna be more._

But he wasn’t ready yet to say the second part, so he just sat down beside Chenle and took his hand and started drawing hearts on it with the blunt tip of a pencil. Chenle giggled at the tickling sensation.

They went back to doing math homework.

###

Side by side, Donghyuck and Mark strolled through the mafia boss’s rose gardens. Their feet were silent against the soft grass. The air brimmed with the fragrance of the flowers, which were terrifically lush and red, their centers sparkling with tiny diamonds.

Donghyuck’s hand itched to reach out and take Mark’s.

He put his hand in his pocket instead, and tried to act natural.

“So,” Mark said, breaking the silence. “Hi.”

Donghyuck wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting when he’d asked Mark to walk with him, but he supposed that anything was better than stiff silence.

“Hi,” Donghyuck said, and his voice cracked a little. He couldn’t bring himself to be embarrassed. “Uh . . . so, like, how much do you know about me?”  
“Well, you’re . . .” Mark trailed off. “You’re an assassin. And your name is Donghyuck.”

“You can call me Hyuck.”

“Really?” Mark said. “I’ve never heard Jeno or Jaemin call you that before.”

“They’re not allowed,” Donghyuck said. “But you’ve always been allowed.”

He hoped against all hope that Mark might understand.

“Okay then,” he said, with an easy shrug. “Hyuck.”

The nickname sent Donghyuck’s heart tripping. He started talking, spilling out words before he’d thought about what he was going to say. “What did Chenle tell you? About like, you and me? I know I’ve been a bit of a bitch for avoiding you ever since we met—but, you know, I just didn’t know what else to _do_. You know?”

“Well,” Mark said. It took him so long to say something else that Donghyuck was afraid he was done talking. “Chenle didn’t tell me much.”

Donghyuck slowed to a stop, making Mark halt as well. They’d wandered their way into one of the gazebos, one thickly populated with roses that draped themselves in sweeping wine red curtains all around the walls of the walk-through enclosure. Standing here with Mark, surrounded by a wonderland of beauty in bloom, made Donghyuck’s throat tight. _I’m dreaming,_ he thought. _I fell asleep after staring too long at his photographs and now I’m in a dream._

“I can’t tell what you’re thinking.” Mark spoke in a fragile whisper. “What are you thinking?”

Donghyuck felt a stab. “You used to be able to tell.”

“I—really?”

“Yeah. Without me even saying a word.” Donghyuck bumped his shoulder against Mark’s. “That’s how close we were.”

“Oh. Wow.” Mark laughed. It was the same awkward, endearing laugh he had always had. “It kind of sounds like we were soulmates.”

“It’s funny you say that.” Donghyuck said, reaching to take Mark’s wrist. 

He gave Donghyuck a confused look, but the younger just gently pulled back Mark’s sleeve, then his own, and then pressed their bare wrists together. He heard Mark inhale sharply in surprise at the sight of their identical tattoos, side by side.

“Can you tell me about them?” 

Donghyuck felt himself smile. “We got drunk one night, that’s all, and I got you to drive us to a tattoo parlor. You went first. While you were sitting under the needle I asked if it hurt.”

“What did I say?”

“You just smiled and said no.”

“That makes it sound like I was lying.”

“You so were. When it was my turn. . .” Donghyuck shook his head, his smile growing wider at the memory. “That needle hurt like fucking hell, I’m not even kidding. I’d never do it again. I can’t believe there are people who are tatted on their face or fingers and stuff—like, how do they do it?”

Mark’s laugh was soft. He traced the L.A. emblem on the inside of Donghyuck’s wrist with his fingertip. “Why did you and I pick these letters?”

Donghyuck twisted his lips. He looked over at the older to check if he really wanted to know or if he was just asking to keep the conversation going.

Mark must have sensed his hesitance. “I’ve been curious about it ever since I woke up,” he said. “It was what motivated me to come to Los Angeles and find out if there was anyone anywhere who knew me before I was no one. You know? I hope that makes sense.”

“It makes sense,” Donghyuck said. “And Mark Lee, trust me. You have never been a no one.”

Taut silence hung between them. 

“Who were we?” Mark whispered. “Who was I? To you?”

Donghyuck felt his eyes sting.

 _Don’t cry, Donghyuck,_ he thought in a panic, _don’t fucking cry, you know that Mark cries when other people cry_.

Also, Donghyuck had listened in on Dejun’s conversation with Mark, and it had been eye-opening for him. Right now Mark was feeling confused and insecure. Donghyuck didn’t want to add to that.

So he made a decision.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. 

Immediately he regretted his decision, but he kept going anyway.

“I mean, it does. It does, of course. But that’s stuff I can’t expect you to uphold. Things have changed and I should respect that.” He took a deep breath. “All you need to know from here on out is that I care a fuckton about you and we’re going to be friends and you better appreciate that because typical assassins don’t even bother having friends—we’re all just arrogant asswipes who can’t handle a non-murderous social interaction for the life of us.”

Mark laughed. “Oh, okay. I guess I should stay out of the way of any other assassins, then.” He rubbed his eye. “Honestly, though, I’m just as terrible with social stuff. I’m pretty blind when it comes to picking up, like, signals.”

“Yeah,” Donghyuck said, “but you’re also just straight-up blind. Why aren’t you wearing your glasses?”

Mark stopped rubbing his eye to look at Donghyuck in surprise. “I have glasses?”

“Yes, you dumbass,” Donghyuck groaned, taking his hand and pulling him out of the gazebo. “Come on. We’re going to the optometrist and buying you some prescription lenses. I can’t believe you.”

Mark let himself be dragged out of the gardens and back into the mansion, where they found a room full of Renjun’s antique glasses collection and spent an hour trying on frames and laughing at each other for looking funny in them. The whole while, he didn’t let go of Donghyuck’s hand, and Donghyuck couldn’t help but feeling a small thrill at it.

 _Maybe_ , he thought. _Maybe, there’s hope yet._

###

The next morning, Jaemin entered Renjun’s office. 

“Huang!” he announced, throwing open the office door. “I swear to God, you better be in here, because I cannot have just dragged my ass up all of those stairs for nothing.”

“I’m in here,” Renjun said, sitting at his desk, his computer open in front of him. He didn’t spare Jaemin a glance. “What is it, Na?”

“Gimme a sec.” Jaemin bent over, resting his hands on his knees to catch his breath. “Whoa, that’s a lot of stairs. Three hundred and thirty-three floors. I have no idea how Jeno climbs those every day.”

“I think Jeno’s given up on trying to convince me to let him use the elevator,” Renjun said. “I don’t know if he knows that stairs make people’s legs look great.”

“You make your employees climb all that just so they can have nice legs?”

“Sure,” Renjun said, looking up at him from his computer. “Although Jeno’s legs were originally nice anyway.”

At that, Jaemin was at a loss of what to say. “. . . Wow. Okay.”

“Alright, what is it that you want? Why are you here?”

Jaemin straightened. “I’m . . .” He thought back to last night. “It’s about Mark.”

“Mark is out exploring town with Chenle and Jisung. Ugh, I ought to just combine those two names, oughtn’t I? It would save my breath from having to say both of them. Everyone already knows that when there’s one, there’s the other.” Renjun tilted his head. “Chenji? Or . . . Jichen?”

“Chensung,” said Jaemin, cracking a smile. “That’s what Donghyuck and I have been calling them.”

“I like your thinking,” Renjun said, with a finger snap of approval. “Jisung, the chap, I’m afraid he’s going to purchase an entire store of chocolates for Chenle’s birthday next week.”

“Chenle would love that,” Jaemin agreed, taking a moment to indulge himself in imagining the idea, before shaking himself out of it. “That’s not what I’m here to talk about, though. I’ve got a mission.”

Last night, at two a.m., Jaemin had come home from work and crawled into bed beside Jeno, just as he always did. The only difference was that last night, Jeno was less drowsy than normal. 

“Where do you go, at night?” he had murmured.

“I have a job,” Jaemin said. He hooked his ankles with Jeno’s. Jeno’s feet were always so warm.

“A baking gig, night after night?” Jeno sniffed. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Jaemin dodged the question with a playful nudge of his own. “What about you?” He toyed with a stray tuft of Jeno’s blond hair. “Where do you go during the night? Your hair smells like barbecue.”

“With the boss,” Jeno yawned. “He likes to go out and eat. I think midnight barbecue is his hobby.”

“. . . Are you sure he doesn’t just like to eat _with_ _you_?”

“Ugh, why does everyone seem so keen on me having a fling with my employer?” Jeno buried his face in Jaemin’s shoulder. “M’sleepy. Let’s sleep.”

Jaemin had closed his eyes. “Alright.”

When he heard Jeno’s breathing even out, Jaemin opened his eyes to gaze at the ceiling. 

Sure, he felt bad. Keeping secrets wasn’t his favorite thing in the world. It was especially hard when Jeno looked at him with his confused hurt puppy face. 

But it was worth it, every time that Jaemin secretly wired a portion of his paycheck into Jeno’s bank account, because he knew that even though Renjun was currently covering much of Jeno’s living costs sooner or later the hourglass would run out and Jeno would be thrust back into the cold hard world that he’d been struggling with ever since Mark died. 

“What’s your mission?”

Jaemin jerked back to the present. Renjun was looking at him, expectant.

“I’m here because of Mark.”

“You said that already,” commented Renjun.

Jaemin sighed, shifted. “I don’t know if you know this already,” he said, “but I’m a stripper? I work in Ten’s club. And recently I had this pair of private customers who came in together and said some stuff about Operation Phoenix.”

Renjun closed his laptop. “Names.”

“They mentioned you and apparently they knew I live at your house, but other than that, I didn’t tell them anything, so—wait, what? Names?”

“Of the customers,” Renjun said. “Do you have their names?”

Jaemin thought back hard. “One of them was called Yuto.”

Renjun uttered a soft curse, getting to his feet. “Shit. Not a Pentagon member.” His hand came up to snap his locket pendant open and shut, in an obvious stressed habit. “I can’t kill off a Pentagon member.”

“What? _What?_ Who said anything about anyone killing anyone?”

“What was the other customer’s name?” Renjun demanded. 

Jaemin was taken aback by the urgency in Renjun’s eyes. “I . . . think he was named Dongyoung.”

Renjun stared at him. Jaemin wondered if he’d said something wrong. The intensity in the mafia leader’s gaze was incredibly hard to bear— _I don’t know how Jeno does it every day,_ Jaemin thought fleetingly.

“There’s no reason why Dongyoung would be out and about with a member from the American Department of Defense,” Renjun finally said, sitting back down into his chair. “It’s more likely that it was not Yuto who you talked to, but _Yuta_. Different person entirely. He and Dongyoung are part of Lee Taeyong’s outfit.”

“Right, you’re right, it was Yuta,” Jaemin said, recalling the man’s name.

Renjun made a small noise of annoyance directed at no one in particular. “I can’t kill off anybody from Taeyong’s outfit, either,” he muttered.

“Why do you keep talking about killing people?”

“I’m a professional criminal. I kill people for a living.”

Jaemin swallowed. “No, that’s Donghyuck. Jeno says that _you_ try not to kill people unless you have to.”

“He says that?” 

“He—okay, no, that’s not important right now,” Jaemin said. He had better things to do than fan the flames of whatever curious love story was brewing between his best friend and Renjun. “I’m here because I want to know why those people were so interested in Operation Phoenix. They wanted to know if I had any info on how you’re handling the outbreak. What is the outbreak? I know Operation Phoenix is supposed to be the American government’s secret zombie project, and I know that Mark is an effect of that project, but I don’t really know much else, and it’s time you clued us in.”

Renjun snapped his pendant open, then shut. _Click. Click_. “The official name for the zombies is, in fact, deadmen. And Mark is one of them. That’s all the information I have so far.”

“That’s literally nothing. Even I know that much. What else—”

 _Click._ “I have been doing my best to find out why Mark exhibits far greater mental stability than the rest of the documented deadmen. However, so far, there have been no breakthroughs.” _Click, click._

“Wait.” A chill ran down Jaemin’s spine. “ _Documented_ deadmen? You mean there’s rogue zombies out there who aren’t documented?” 

Renjun narrowed his eyes. “Hold on. How can I be sure I can trust you with this information? Anything you know could compromise Mark’s safety.”

“That’s the reason why you can trust me,” Jaemin said. “You can be certain that I won’t blab to any future curious customers about Mark or Operation Phoenix, if it means keeping Mark safe.”

Renjun blew out a breath. “Fine. Alright.” _Click._ “Here it is: the ‘outbreak’ that those two men told you about refers to the recent unprovoked attacks of the undocumented deadmen.”

“Attacks?” Jaemin mulled that over. “I haven’t heard of any attacks on the news.”

“The police are good at keeping things quiet,” Renjun said. “So far, there have been no casualties, only scarings. We don’t want mass word getting out, because the only public response to the news of the undead breaking out of a high-security government bunker will be widespread panic.”

Jaemin’s legs felt weak, and not just from running up over three hundred flights of stairs to get to Renjun’s office. “That’s . . . wow, that’s fucking freaky.”

Renjun opened his laptop again. “Yes. It is. And I’m in the middle of doing research to see how best to combat a legion of the undead. It’d be convenient if you could be on your way right about now.”

Jaemin nodded, still reeling. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll get going.”

As he was turning to leave, Renjun spoke up again.

“By the way, Na, I had no idea you were a stripper.”

Jaemin turned back around fast. “And Jeno doesn’t either, so make sure you keep that quiet,” he said, coming as close to snapping as he dared with the mafia boss.

Renjun’s eyes searched him, then flicked behind Jaemin. “Hi there, Jeno.”

 _Shit._ Jaemin whirled.

Jeno was standing in the doorway, carrying a plate of butter cookies in one hand and a mug of steaming tea in the other. His mouth hung open as he stared at his best friend.

“Jaem,” he said, “what did I just hear?”

“Jen—”

“You _strip_?”

“I’m not—you don’t—Jeno, hear me out.” 

“Is that my tea, Jeno?” asked Renjun, just before the phone on his desk rang. He picked it up. “Hello, Lisa.”

Jaemin ignored him, his focus on Jeno, who was looking at him with a hard expression. He strode past Jaemin and set down the mug and plate of cookies onto Renjun’s desk. 

“Is that where you’ve been disappearing all these past nights, Jaemin?” he asked, not quite looking at him. “The strip club?”

“Yes, okay, it is. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It’s just—” Jaemin cast about desperately for a suitable explanation. “I needed the money, okay?”

“What? No. That makes no sense.”

Jaemin closed his eyes briefly, bracing himself for what was to come. “It was . . . for you.”

Jeno’s lips parted in disbelief. He searched Jaemin’s face. Jaemin could see it falling together in his head: the way Jaemin had always expressed being upset over Jeno skipping meals to save money, no matter how many times Jeno rejected Jaemin’s offers to lend him some financial support.

“Jaemin,” he said, his voice full of an unreadable emotion.

Renjun stood up quickly out of his chair. “Lisa, say that again. Where are you? I’m coming.” He slammed the phone down, stood up, faced Jeno. “Jeno, I’m sorry to break up your row with Jaemin, but we have to go. Right now.”

Jeno tore his gaze away from Jaemin to look at his boss. “Where?”  
“The LAPD is in trouble,” Renjun said, opening the drawer in his desk and pulling out a handgun. Jaemin’s eyes went wide at the sight of the weapon. “Lisa called for assistance. She and the rest of the sheriffs are downtown at the faux pier.”

“What kind of trouble are they in?” Jeno asked, hurrying after Renjun as the boss made for the door. “I’ll call Byeongkwan to prepare the car.”

“Okay. We’re riding the elevator—no time for the stairs.”

“Wait,” Jaemin called, just as Jeno was leaving the room. He wasn’t sure why Renjun had a gun, but he had the feeling it had to do with the deadmen outbreaks Renjun had talked about. _If the police are asking the mafia boss for backup, something serious is going on._ “Jeno, wait. You can’t go with him. What if it’s dangerous?”

On any other day, Jeno might have listened to him. But Jaemin knew what Jeno was like when he got mad—he had the tendency not to listen. 

“You and I can talk later,” Jeno said, darkly. “I have to go do work.”

He left the room before Jaemin could say anything.

Jaemin slumped into Renjun’s chair. He took a miserable bite out of one of the butter cookies.

 _Great_ , he thought _. Fuck me._

###

The car ride in the limousine was full of tension.

Jeno reviewed what Renjun had told him a couple minutes ago. _We’re heading downtown to the pier. Police officers in trouble. Zombie attacks. Don’t be afraid._

Jeno inhaled deeply and tried to cast away all thoughts of his fight with Jaemin up in Renjun’s office. Now was now. He needed to be alert. He was heading into danger.

“You look like you think you’re heading into danger,” remarked the boy sitting beside Jeno. He was one of Renjun’s men, someone Renjun had demanded over the intercom to join him and Jeno in the car. “Don’t worry. We’ll be fine.” He patted Jeno’s elbow.

“Hands off my secretary, Liu,” said Renjun, not looking up from his phone. “Byeongkwan, can you drive a little faster, please?”

The chauffeur obeyed, pressing harder on the pedal. The car put on a few extra miles per hour.

Yangyang reluctantly took his hand away from Jeno’s arm. “I’m just tryna give the guy some peace of mind, boss,” he said. “You know, since he looks so terrified and everything. He should know that there’s not gonna be any danger.”

“There will be some danger,” Renjun said, finally looking up at Yangyang. His gaze was steely. “But you’re skilled with your revolver, so I brought you along.”

Jeno cast a furtive look at the gun that was currently resting in Renjun’s lap. He had watched Renjun load it.

“Jisung’s the most skilled with a gun, if you ask me,” Yangyang said.

Renjun sounded tense. “You know how I am about Jisung.”

“Yes, fine, I know, I care about him too,” Yangyang sighed, peering out the window. “Oh, we’re here. _Oh my God wait what is that.”_

“What is what?” Jeno asked, craning to get a look too. His eyes widened when he saw what they were looking at.

The beach looked just like it did every day: sunny, warm, picturesque. Tall white pillars, half-submerged in the ocean, supported the sandalwood deck of the pier. Only a portion of the ocean directly surrounding the pier was legitimate, though—the horizon and the endless blue water around it was nothing more than a hologram, engineered to give beachgoers the impression of being at a real beach. Everyone knew that actual beaches had gone out of business ever since the great Plastic Pollution Influx several centuries ago. That disaster was the reason why pseudoplastics had replaced plastics. 

Today, though, the beach was empty of civilians. Instead, police cars were parked all along the entrance of the pier, their black-and-pink sirens wailing.

Through the jumble of police vehicles, Jeno could make out the outline of five figures standing on the pier. One of the figures was far too large to be human.

“Fuck,” Yangyang breathed. “Issa zombie.”

“A deadman,” Renjun corrected, as Byeongkwan parked the car. Renjun threw open the door, clambering out. “Alright, Liu, let’s go. Take your guns. You have your bombs? Good.”

Yangyang hopped out of the car. Jeno started to unbuckle his seatbelt.

“No, Jeno,” Renjun said. “You’re staying in the car.”

 _What?_ “Why’d you bring me along, then?”

“I need you to observe. Take note of what the deadman looks like, how it behaves, how many bullets it can take, all of that. Byeongkwan will drive you close enough to get a good view.”

“But I—”

“ _No_.” Renjun’s face was set. “You’re. Staying. Here.”

Before Jeno could say anything more, Renjun shut the car door and called at Byeongkwan to start moving in. 

_Alright, don’t freak out,_ Jeno thought to himself, watching Renjun and Yangyang through the car window as they made their way down the street. _Huang’s right. This could be dangerous. Better to just follow orders and stay safe._

“Sir, please climb up front,” Byeongkwan said. “To get through that crowd of cars, I need to minimize the limo size, and I can’t do that if you’re in the back.”

“Oh. Alright,” Jeno said, getting up. He slid into the passenger’s seat. 

“Thank you.” Byeongkwan pressed a button on the steering wheel.

There was a great _whoosh_ ing noise and the car contracted, its back seat and trunk immediately folding together, leaving the limousine a quarter of its usual size. Jeno sputtered in awe. 

“Alright, I’m approaching the scene,” Byeongkwan said, and began to maneuver the now-shrunken limousine through the police cars.

As they passed them, Jeno could see into the car windows, and was confused to see that all of the driver seats were unoccupied. “Automated vehicles?”

“Yes, automated vehicles.” Byeongkwan squeezed the limo between two vacant cars. “Each sheriff takes at least a couple with them whenever they go on patrol. It gives the impression of there being more officers than there are.”

“How many are there in reality?”

“Four.” Byeongkwan’s hands shifted on the wheel.

Jeno recalled the five figures he’d caught sight of on the pier. _Four sheriffs, plus Renjun and Yangyang. All against one deadman. What could go wrong?_

A scream pierced the air, followed by several loud cracks. Bullets.

Jeno’s blood ran cold.

Byeongkwan propelled the limo through the last row of police cars, and finally Jeno could get a good look at what was going on.

There was an enormous, hulking figure against the railing of the pier. Its eyes were glassy and it shuffled back and forth, its broken toes crunching with each step. Underneath all the grime on its limbs, its skin was pale blue and hairy. Its stringy hair plastered to its neck and shoulders. It was very sickeningly _dead_ —it looked like it belonged in a cemetery, and not here, where it was walking around, emitting low animalistic grunts. Its fingernails were elongated claws, slick with blood.

Surrounding the beast was a small ring of officers. Jeno recognized Jennie and Rose. One of the other sheriffs was crouching by their fourth companion, who was on the ground, clutching her shoulder, her long dark hair obscuring her face.

“Liu, fire,” Jeno heard Renjun shout.

Jeno didn’t even see Yangyang move—he just heard another series of sharp cracks. In response, the beast roared and staggered, although it didn’t seem to have sustained any actual injuries, even with the steam from its bullet wounds curling visibly off its skin.

 _Shoot more_ , Jeno thought. _Why aren’t they shooting more?_

One of the sheriffs, Rose, was holding up her hand for Yangyang to stop firing. Soon enough Jeno saw why.

In the deadman’s arms, which had thus far been hidden behind its back, was a squalling child.

###

The sea spray at the pier made Renjun’s mouth taste foul. “Why won’t you let us shoot it?” he shouted.

Rose’s orange hair was tossed about by the wind. “It—it’s kidnapped a _kid_.” 

“Who cares about the kid?” 

“We can’t risk shooting the baby!”

Renjun narrowed his eyes. “That’s not a baby.”

“What? Of course it is, we can’t—”

Renjun’s gaze on the deadman and the small thrashing bundle in its arms.

“That’s just an infant deadman,” he said.

Rose started to protest, before the blanket wrapped around the bundle fell away in the wind, revealing a sickly-looking infant with bluish skin and two dirt-filled holes in the spaces where its eyes were missing.

“You’re right,” Rose gasped.

“Guys, hurry up and get rid of it,” Lisa begged, from where she was kneeling on the ground beside Jisoo. 

“Lisa, is my wife okay?” shouted Jennie. Her face was emotionless—a deceptive expression that in truth could only mean that she was terrified beyond her wits. 

“She needs a hospital,” Lisa said, trying to gather the semiconscious Jisoo in her arms. Renjun glimpsed the nasty wound marring Jisoo’s shoulder—claw marks cleaved four bleeding slashes down her torso and upper arm.

 _How unpleasant_ , Renjun thought. “Fire again, Liu.”

“I’m out of ammo, boss, I’ve already shot it twenty-two times—”

“Okay, I’m doing it,” he interrupted, and squeezed the trigger.

He hadn’t practiced his aim for seven years for nothing. The bullet lodged itself straight through the deadman’s eye, causing it to scream and lurch, toppling backwards off the pier. Renjun went over to the pier railing and watched the beast’s descent. Before it hit the water, its flailing limbs stopped moving. _Dead,_ he thought, encouraged. _And so is the mini one._

He turned back to Yangyang, with a reproachful look. “You shoot twenty-two times and can’t kill it. I shoot once and succeed first try. How does that make sense?”

“I forgot about how you gotta shoot zombies in the brain,” Yangyang said sheepishly.

“Of course you forgot,” Renjun said, “you probably barely have a brain yourself.”

“Low blow, boss.”

###

The baby zombie wasn’t dead.

It was climbing up the pier post.

And only Jeno saw it. 

The female police officers were hustling their fallen companion into one of the cars. Renjun was immersed in a post-battle conversation with Yangyang, their backs turned to Jeno. No one saw what Jeno did.

“Do you have a weapon I can use, Byeongkwan?” Jeno asked, turning to him urgently.

“Yes.” Byeongkwan opened the side compartment of the car, revealing a neat stack of pistols. “They’re all single-shot, though.”

Jeno swiped two of them and tried to open his door. It was locked. He chanced a glance out the window and saw the baby zombie had gained its footing on the deck and was shaking off seawater, like a grotesque puppy fresh out of the bath. “Open the door!”

“The boss said not to let you out—”

“ _Fuck_ what the boss said! He’s gonna die!”

Byeongkwan hesitated. Jeno was ready to throttle him. But the next thing he heard was the _click_ of the door unlocking, and he shoved his way out of the car, stumbling to his feet and looking for the crawling infant demon. 

_There_. It was halfway to Renjun now, whose back was still turned.

“Boss! Behind you!” Jeno shouted.

His words were lost in the wind. He gritted his teeth, raised the pistol in his right hand.

All of the sudden, he was back in front of his apartment complex, taking aim at the serial killer who’d shot Chenle. Back then, his hand hadn’t shook.

Right now was a different story.

 _Now,_ he thought.

 _Bang._ The force of the gunshot made Jeno stagger.

He looked up in time to see that he had blown a hole clean through the bottom of the pier deck, but had missed the actual zombie. The creature was still crawling toward Renjun at a frightening pace, its eyes set on the back of Renjun’s head. _Brains,_ Jeno thought, _zombies eat brains._

The zombie was almost upon him.

Jeno wasted no time. He threw down his empty gun and raised his left hand, the one with the other pistol.

_Bang._

The childlike creature released a whine and faltered. Jeno had hit its kneecap.

Renjun turned at the noise. His eyes widened at the sight of the zombie, mere paces away.

Renjun’s boot came out to deliver a savage kick. The beast skidded off the pier, shrieking the whole while, until suddenly in an explosion of fire it burst into bits. It landed in the murky water below and sank underneath the surface.

“Zombies explode?” Jeno breathed..

“Nah,” Yangyang said. “It was a grenade. Forgot I had one in my back pocket.”

“Oh. Okay.” Jeno’s knees shook so bad they knocked together. He wiped his face and his hand came away covered in sweat.

Renjun stalked toward him, his lavender hair tousled by the wind. “I thought I told you to stay in the _car_.”

“It was gonna eat your brain,” Jeno managed. The ground swayed beneath him. His lips moved of their accord. “Your beautiful brain and it was all going to be wasted in a zombie’s stomach.” 

Renjun’s face softened. “Let’s . . . let’s head back to the car. It’s over now.”

“Damn,” Yangyang said from behind them. “Beautiful brain, huh? I need to get me a romance like yours, boss.”

“Shut it, Liu.”

Renjun led Jeno back to the limousine, where Byeongkwan was waiting. Most of the police cars had already driven off, presumably to get Jisoo to a hospital.

 _It’s over,_ Jeno thought, buckling his seatbelt again. The car rumbled underneath them as they took off back to the mansion. _It’s over._

###

_Water balloons, water guns. It was the first day of summer, and Mark had decided to treat all of them to a day at the local waterpark. Except Chenle was scared of public pools, because_ what if it’s dirty?! People pee in it all day! _so the day was mainly characterized by Donghyuck and Mark heading off on their own to enjoy the water slides and maybe make out in the lazy river, while Jeno and Jaemin chaperoned Chenle as he played in the kiddie playground where there were no pools for people to pee in, only big buckets of water that would toll every five minutes and empty themselves atop the heads of the squealing kids in the area._

_As Chenle played and ran around, Jaemin located an abandoned water gun. He advanced on Jeno with a growing smile._

_“No fair!” Jeno said. “I’m unarmed!”_

_Jaemin squirted him anyway. Jeno writhed and dramatically flopped to the ground. Laughing, Jaemin didn’t stop squirting until Jeno’s shirt was sopping wet._

_When he’d had enough, he popped to his feet, seized the water gun and began blasting it back. Jaemin shrieked. They chased each other around the playground, shouting and laughing._

_The pseudoplastic of the toy fit well in Jeno’s hand. Still, he’d never thought, not in this life or the next, that he’d ever have to use a real gun._

_###_

As soon as he got back to the mansion, Jeno went to the kitchen, poured himself a glass of iced tea—knowing full well he wasn’t supposed to drink caffeine anymore, but fuck it, he’d had a long day—and went upstairs.

On his way up, Renjun tried to ask if he was alright.

 _No, no, no, no, no, no, no,_ Jeno thought.

“Yeah,” Jeno said, and walked past him.

He was going to go to his bedroom, but thought twice about it, since Jaemin might be there, and he didn’t really want to talk to Jaemin right now. So he went to his office instead, set the half-finished iced tea down onto his desk, and sank into his chair.

Or at least, he tried to, but he’d misjudged the distance and ended up slipping off the edge of the seat and crashing to the ground.

For a while he sat there, trying to catch his breath.

Why was he out of breath?

Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw the deadman, the baby zombie. He could still feel the grip of the pistol between his fingers. The events of the day at the pier were blurring into the memories of what had happened months ago in front of Jeno’s apartment complex.

He couldn’t find it in him to stand up.

Shaking, he pulled himself into a sitting position and leaned against the leg of the desk, reaching into his pocket for his holo-phone.

Four missed calls and thirty-eight texts. All from Jaemin.

Jeno set it to silent mode, then powered it off. His head felt too full and at the same time too light.

He reached up to open his desk drawer, then scooped out one of the paper cranes sitting inside. It was white, pristine, the size of his palm. He brought it to eye level and stared at its blank paper face.

###

“ _If you make a thousand of them, you’re supposed to make a wish,” Mark said, passing Jeno a crane. They had just searched up an Internet tutorial for how to fold one._

_“What would I wish for?” Jeno said, toying with the bird’s tail._

_“Whatever you want. Love. Happiness. A good report card.”_

_“I’d want a new pair of basketball shoes,” was what Jeno said, because he was just a dumb high schooler and didn’t know any better._

###

The office floor was cold underneath Jeno’s legs.

He wasn’t sure what made him do it. All he knew was that he suddenly, desperately needed something to ground him. His mind was threatening to float away and he had to make it stay.

The paper crane looked so erringly delicate, in his palm. 

The slit of the papercut was a briny pain. A thin red line welled up on the pad of his thumb.

Three more lines joined the first one. The wing of the crane grew wet, dark.

###

“Jeno?”

Jeno couldn’t stifle the noise of surprise he emitted at the unexpected voice in the room. He curled in on himself, hoping to make himself small and feeling like a frightened child. Maybe that was all he was: a frightened child. He didn’t want Renjun to see him like this. 

“Jeno?” said the voice again, this time softer.

Jeno squeezed his eyes shut. _Soft voices like pastel paint, spilling through the sticky silence of a school bathroom_ . _Two pairs of feet in the same stall. Jeno’s name, whispered once. Twice. Tear-streaked smiles, gentle eyes, irreversible grief._

His eyes flew open. His heart was pounding. “Boss?” he croaked.

Renjun was kneeling in front of him, his face full of concern. His gaze flicked from Jeno’s face to the origami crane in Jeno’s hand, the edge of which was very clearly darkened with blood. “What’s wrong?” he whispered.

“I don’t know.” Jeno’s bottom lip trembled. He bit down on it in an attempt to keep it steady. “I don’t _know_. I can’t tell.”

“Okay.” His eyes not once leaving Jeno’s face, Renjun took the paper crane out of Jeno’s hand and placed it on the floor. “It’s okay. Look at me, yeah? Breathe with me.”

Jeno tried to inhale a shaky breath, but coughed in the middle of it, and he thought _holy fuck I can’t breathe, I can’t even fucking breathe_ —and just like that all of the sudden he was crying again. “I can’t do this. I can’t.”

“You don’t have to do anything except breathe.” Renjun’s voice was endlessly soothing.

Jeno’s heart twitched. Another oncoming jumble of images. _Sunday afternoons, yellow pencils, yogurt snacks, fingers locked together_ —

“I keep having these flashbacks,” Jeno gasped, wrenching out of it. “Fuck, I don’t know what they _are_ , I don’t know what they mean, but I think I had some type of fucked-up childhood trauma and there’s something that I don’t remember—and Mark’s the only one I can ask about it because Mark’s the only person who raised me, but I can’t _ask_ him because he’s got amnesia shit too, and he knows next to nothing about his _own_ life, much less mine.”

“Flashbacks about what?” Renjun asked, something urgent in his tone. His gold pendant swung on its long, thin chain. “You think they’re memories?”

“Yes,” Jeno choked out. “I’m almost sure of it. Fuck, they freak me out. I can’t deal with them, not when there’s so much other shit going on.”

Renjun’s voice was quiet. “Is this about what happened today? With the deadmen?”

“Maybe.” Jeno didn’t know. “Maybe it’s everything. Anything. I miss Mark when he had his memories. I miss the house we had before he died. I miss Jaemin being transparent, I miss being happy, I miss my childhood, I miss my damn _cat_.”

His voice broke. He was crying too hard to speak by now. 

The office was quiet.

The next sensation he felt was of Renjun taking his hand, gently prying his fingers out of the fist they’d made. Then there was the sensation of something freezing cold being pressed against Jeno’s palm.

It was an ice cube.

“Hold this,” Renjun said, wrapping Jeno’s fingers around the ice. “Let it melt. Focus on the cold. Breathe while you wait.”

Jeno sniffled and clutched the cube, hard. The biting pain was sharp, and welcome.

“More,” he heard himself saying. “Do you have more?”

“I think so.” Renjun rose to his feet long enough to grab something from the desk. He sank back into a crouch, Jeno’s glass of iced tea in his hand.

He dipped his bare fingers into the drink to pull out several more of the ice cubes, which he passed to Jeno, who held them in his fists. Little by little, they melted, the chilly water running down Jeno’s knuckles and dripping onto the floor. Jeno focused on steadying his breathing.

“Better?” Renjun finally whispered, after the ice had melted. 

“Better,” Jeno agreed, opening his now-empty hands. His fingers still shook a little, but his mind was clear. “Thank you.”

Renjun let out a sigh of relief. “Cutting yourself . . . that’s never the answer. Even if it’s just papercuts.” He flicked at the origami crane on the floor. “Instead, I like to use ice, since it’s less permanent.” He gave Jeno a small smile.

Jeno’s breath caught. _Oh._

In that moment, Renjun looked like an angel, moonlight streaming in from the office window to hug the gentle curves of his face.

“. . . Has anyone ever told you you’re amazing?” Jeno whispered.

Renjun’s smile grew. Silently he opened his arms.

Jeno hesitated. Aside from that one time at the summit long long ago, he couldn’t remember Renjun ever touching him.

“Boss?”

“Renjun,” said Renjun. “It’s Renjun.”

And he held his arms wider.

Jeno let out a whimper and sank into Renjun’s grasp, burying his face in Renjun’s shoulder. Again he was crying, sobbing his heart out. One of Renjun’s hands rested on his back, while the other came up to hold the back of his head, his fingers cool against Jeno’s hot and clammy neck.

They stayed like that for a while, warm comfy silence all around them. Jeno’s sobs receded to sniffles.

Right there, on the floor of Jeno’s office room, something changed between the two of them. Something irreversible, and important. 

“Hey, by the way,” Renjun murmured, playing with the hair near the nape of Jeno’s neck. “I didn’t know you like cats.”

Jeno chuckled wetly. “Oh, yeah. They’re my favorite.”

“What was your cat’s name?”

“Bongsik.” Jeno’s heart ached to say her name. “Gray tabby. Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Renjun said, pulling back. “Also. The stuff about the flashbacks. I think . . . I’ll do some research on it, alright? I’ll see what I can find.”

Jeno wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Thanks. Renjun.” The name sounded new on his lips.

In a seizing moment of insecurity, he was convinced Renjun would snap at him, laugh at him, say he took it back— _it’s ‘boss’ to you, you mutinous walrus_ —but Renjun did none of that.

All he did was help Jeno to his feet. And pat him on the hand. And tell him to get some sleep. 

_He didn’t call me a walrus_ , Jeno thought, and this was the thought that persisted with him for the rest of the night, as he lay awake in bed staring at the moon and feeling grateful for lavender-haired angels who gave him ice cubes and warm hugs.

###

The next morning, when Renjun came up to Jeno at the breakfast table, he was wearing a smile and carrying a purring gray tabby in his arms.

“Surprise,” he said.

Jeno shot to his feet. “ _Bong Bong?_ ”

The cat meowed. Renjun passed her over to Jeno, whose eyes were enormous.

“How did you—when did you—I had to give her away when we moved into the apartment!” Jeno rubbed the cat’s thick fur. “How did you find her?”

“I’m the mob boss of the City of Angels,” Renjun said. “I can do anything.”

Jeno grinned, his eyes disappearing into crescents. “Thank you, Renjun.”

Renjun dipped his head in a nod with a smile of his own.

This one was different from the ones Jeno had seen on him before—this time, it looked somehow more sincere, more _real_. “Of course, Jeno. What are friends for?”

 _This is the mob boss of the City of Angels, and he’s being my friend,_ Jeno thought, a little giddy. _Huang Renjun is my friend._

Bongsik, sensing Jeno’s quickened heartbeat, purred in Jeno arms, and he held her tighter, smiling at Renjun all the while.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the ice thing is legitimate btw. I use it all the time when i have breakdowns, i recommend it as a much safer alternative to actual self harm. 
> 
> Pls stay safe!
> 
> Edit: if you want to see more of Doyoung x Yuta from the crimeful universe, i wrote a short and sweet [one-shot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24758623) about them so feel free to check that out ehehe
> 
> ~Yerin 041220


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fic is so long holy shit im like a machine

The nine sisters were gathered around the fireplace, speaking in hushed voices. Blankets were draped over their shoulders and across their laps, and mugs of hot chocolate were cupped in their hands. The firelight illuminated their faces in a cinematic glow; anyone from a mile away would have been able to tell they were conspiring.

“I’m telling you,” whispered one of the girls, her eyes wide in urgency. “Something’s wrong. I’ve never seen the boss like this before. None of us have!”

The sister to her left nodded, so vigorously that the tail of her braid accidentally dipped into her cocoa. “Exactly, Chaeyoung. He’s never even let animals into the mansion. Remember when we tried to convince him to buy a lion?”

“He’s rich enough to do it,” agreed another sister, Momo.

“But all he did was buy that stuffed animal tiger and leave it in one of the empty rooms,” sulked Chaeyoung. 

“I think Jeno has accidentally wandered into that room on eight different occasions.” One of the older sisters laughed. “It scares the shit out of him every time too. Don’t think he knows it’s fake.”

“No, but get this.” Momo scooted closer. “It’s so strange. How is Jeno so afraid of that stuffed animal without being afraid of something like _Huang_?”

Chaeyoung threw up her hands. “That’s what I was thinking.”

“He’s been addressing the boss by his first name for weeks now,” fretted a younger sister. “The first time I heard him say it, I thought for sure he was dead meat. But Huang barely batted an _eye_.”

“This is straight-up proof, girls,” said Momo, “that Lee Jeno is unlike anyone we’ve ever seen before.”

There was a chorus of assent and nods.

Someone at the door cleared their throat. All nine of them looked up to see Dejun, in the threshold, the glow from the fireplace casting half his face into shadow.

“Gossiping again?” he said.

“Yes!” Momo stood up so fast, her blanket slipped off her shoulders. “Aren’t you curious about what’s going on with our employer?” 

Dejun shrugged. “No, but it seems like you have a problem with Huang’s recent developments.”

“I do,” Momo declared. “Does our allegiance mean nothing to him? We’ve worked for Huang for seven years and he’s never broken any rules for _us_ , but then out of the blue Jeno appears? And Huang lets him bring a contraband house cat into the mansion? That makes like, negative amounts of sense.”

“Huang is the one who made the rules,” Dejun said. “He’s allowed to break them.”

Momo screeched. “But a _cat_?”

“Bongsik is hella cute though,” Chaeyoung said, to no one in particular. “Jeno calls her Bong Bong. Like, who wouldn’t think that’s cute?”

“I like Jeno,” said the youngest sister, Tzuyu. She rarely spoke, so everyone in the room immediately turned to listen to her.

“And so do I,” Dejun said, clearly not following.

Tzuyu continued. “It’s because I like him that I don’t want him to get hurt. The boss isn’t gentle with people’s feelings.”

“Exactly,” Chaeyoung moped. “Poor Jeno.”

There was a chorus of dejected agreement around the fireplace.

“All of you have miscalculated,” Dejun said. His eyes glittered with the look of a man who knew something that everyone else didn’t. “The reason why the boss is treating Jeno differently than he’s ever treated any of us is far more innocent than you might think.”

There were a few murmurs of curiosity between the sisters. 

“Huang and the word innocent don’t match,” Momo said. 

Dejun was already walking away. “Enjoy your cocoa.”

The sisters grumbled to each other, before finishing their drinks and folding up their blankets to head to their rooms for the night.

###

_“Come here,” the boy said, opening his arms. He stood in the dead center of the court._

_His jersey-clad friend dribbled around him, making a show out of fancy footwork. “I’m all sweaty, Junnie, you don’t want to touch me.”_

_The boy smiled. “Don’t tell me what I want.”_

_“Don’t tell me what not to tell you.”_

_“Don’t tell me what to tell you to tell me to tell you.”_

_“Jun, you know my brain isn’t big enough to follow that!”_

_“I’m just messing with you,” the boy said, before seizing his friend in a hug, sweaty jersey and all._

###

“Still playing with the cat?”

Jeno grinned at Renjun’s voice. He looked up to see Renjun standing on the other side of the countertop. “Yeah.”

Renjun had just entered the kitchen to find Jeno, eating a stack of pancakes with Bongsik draped across his shoulders like a fluffy gray towel. Jeno’s phone was propped up against his forearm. 

Renjun leaned over the counter and took a look at the screen. “Is that Ten? _Again_? How many live streams can that guy host in a week?”

“He’s been doing them more often lately,” Jeno agreed, stabbing a pancake and trying to cut it in half with the edge of his fork. When it didn’t work, he ended up just stuffing the whole pancake into his mouth. Cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk, he reached up and patted Bongsik’s head. His words were muffled through his full mouth. “Why are you purring so much, princess? It’s almost like you’re a lawn mower.”

Renjun sank into the seat opposite his and wrinkled his nose at the pancakes. “Did Wong make those?”

“Yeah. Kunhang’s a better chef than you think.” Jeno offered him a floppy pancake stuck through with his fork. “Want one?”

Renjun took it, inspected it primly, then passed it back. “I’m not sure why you’re having these when it’s past breakfast time.”

“Ever since I told Kunhang about my panic attacks, he’s been making a ton of comfort food for me. I don’t think he knows how happy it makes me.”

“He does it _because_ he knows how happy it makes you.”

Jeno paused. “Yeah, that makes sense.” He wiggled the pancake in front of Bongsik’s face. She eyed it and reached out to bat it, but he quickly put it into his mouth. 

She purred in irritation. “Who’s a little princess,” he cooed.

Renjun eyed the cat with a look equally as wary as the one that Bongsik had just sent the pancake. “You coddle her too much.”

Jeno shrugged. The cat on his shoulders bobbed up and down with the motion. “If I didn’t know better, Renjun, I’d say you were jealous.”

“I—no.”

His tone was sharp. Dangerous. He didn’t like to be misunderstood.

Or maybe in this case it was that he didn’t like being _understood_.

Jeno hefted the cat up, buried his cheek in her fur. “She’s as fluffy as I remember. The shelter took care of her pretty well, huh?” He kissed her nose. “She’s so happy to see me.”

“I heard from Chenle that you’re allergic,” said Renjun.

As if on cue, Jeno sneezed three times to the side. “Mhm.”

“I _told_ him it’s a strange idea to keep cats if he sneezes whenever they come near!” called a voice. 

Both Jeno and Renjun turned to look at the refrigerator. Renjun narrowed his eyes at the fridge door. “Lee Donghyuck, if you are frolicking in my walk-in refrigerator and eating all of my jam preserves, I swear to God—”

“I’m not frolicking,” came Donghyuck’s retort. “I’m chilling. Meals gotta chill, you know?”

Renjun’s head slowly swiveled to Jeno. “Did he just call himself a meal?”

Jeno could only shrug.

“Anyway,” Renjun sighed. “Jeno. Wouldn’t a hairless cat be more practical? Hypoallergenic, and everything?”

“But those are ugly,” Jeno said.

“So are you,” called Donghyuck, with cheer.

“I am not!” Jeno said. “Renjun, say I’m not.”

“I’m not,” Renjun said loftily.

“That’s not—” Jeno broke off. “You’re hopeless.”

 _Maybe,_ Renjun conceded, before clearing his throat and remembering why he’d sought out Jeno in the kitchen in the first place. “Other than making you food . . . how else did Kunhang respond to you telling him about your anxiety? And about the flashbacks?”

Jeno set down his fork. “Well, here’s the thing. He said that in the case of bad psychological trauma, it’s possible for the brain to erase disturbing memories. He asked me to write down a list of all of the flashbacks I’ve experienced. But when I gave it to him, he looked super confused—he said that none of these memories are traumatic in the least. If anything, they’re just mildly pleasant recollections of an ordinary middle schooler’s life.”

“I thought you said they freaked you out, though,” Renjun said.

“Well, yeah. These recollections are memories that I didn’t even know I had. That’s not normal.”

“Is there a way to make it stop?”

“I asked Kunhang that,” Jeno said. “If there was like, a cure, or something. Meds I could take. But all he said was that we just have to get to the root of what’s triggering the memories, plus whatever made them disappear in the first place.”

“Hmm,” Renjun said.

Jeno smiled. “Stop looking so worried. It’ll be okay.”

“I’m _not_ worried,” Renjun said, in the intimidating voice he reserved for professional occasions like when he commanded his men to rob the federal bank of the United States.

To his dismay, it didn’t have an effect on Jeno, who just kept smiling. _Dammit,_ Renjun thought. 

“Oh, wait!” Jeno said all of the sudden, grabbing his phone and scrolling through it. “Wait, I found something I wanted to show you. I was watching TV with Mark the other day, since Chenle’s trying to introduce him to all his favorite TV shows. I wasn’t really paying attention—but then Chenle switched to this one channel, and look what it had. I took a picture.”

He held up his phone. Renjun squinted at it. The photo had grainy quality, but in it he could make out the unmistakable shape of a round, cow-like figure, one with soft white skin and large round eyes.

“A Moomin,” Jeno said, sounding triumphant. “The show is like, pretty ancient, but I thought you might know about it, since you’ve got a whole Moomin mural built into your lobby floor tiles.”

“Right,” Renjun said, feeling faint. “I . . . yes. I blame that on my thirteen-year-old self.” Back then, when he’d started out in the mafia world and had gotten his first real payload from a successful drug smuggling job, he’d immediately splurged on a multi-billion dollar mansion, designing it based off sketches he’d been making of his dream house. 

He’d made some impulsive choices on the designs. Including that of the Moomin mural. He hadn’t had the heart to remove it, though, even as he grew older and admitted it didn’t match his aesthetic. Keeping it, he had thought, would be a homage to his smaller self, that intensely lonely, intensely young kid who’d just wanted a way to hold onto his childhood.

But here was his childhood, sitting right in front of him with a sweet crescent-eyed smile that made Renjun feel warm and tingly and thirteen years old, all over again.

“I can’t imagine you being in middle school,” Jeno said. “I just—you? No.”

“That’s right,” Renjun drawled. “I crawled out fully-grown from the womb of the Los Angeles sewers.”

“Oh. Well, You smell better than the sewers.”

“What do I smell like, then?”

He hadn’t been expecting a real answer, but Jeno actually seemed to consider the question. “Hmm. . .” He tilted his head. “Like lavender? I know that lavender isn’t a smell that people have—but maybe it’s just like, my brain getting confused between your scent and then the color of your hair. Because it’s, you know. Lavender.”

 _He thinks I smell like flowers,_ Renjun thought, and hated himself for being pleased. He wasn’t supposed to feel pleased. He tried to remember what he was supposed to feel when people said nice things to him: disdain? Disbelief? No, those were responses to the people who had ulterior motives when they gave him compliments. And here was Jeno. Renjun wondered if Jeno had ever had an ulterior motive in his life.

Jeno fidgeted under his gaze, obviously worried by how long it was taking Renjun to respond.

“Sorry. I—was that inappropriate for me to say? Yeah, it probably was. I shouldn’t have said it, I’m sorry.”

“Yes,” Renjun said. “You shouldn’t have.”

He hadn’t meant for it to come out as harshly as it did—he only wanted Jeno to stop being so confusingly kind to him. But the way he said it made it come out as a reprimand, and Jeno looked stricken, ducking his head in a quick nod. Renjun’s eyes lingered on the way he bit his lower lip. 

The fridge door cracked open and out peeked Donghyuck’s head to stare at them. His eyebrows were so high they nearly disappeared into his hairline. 

Jeno scowled. “What?”

“Nothing, I just—I was listening and I wanted to make sure you weren’t like, sniffing his wrist or something. Cuz that would be weird.”

“Donghyuck, what the—why would I be smelling my employer’s wrist?”

“Don’t know! Wouldn’t put it past you!” Donghyuck’s head receded back into the refrigerator.

“Should I kick him out of there?” Brow knitted, Jeno looked at Renjun. “I think he’ll eat through your entire collection of jam preserves.”

“I’ll check the camera footage later,” Renjun said.

Jeno’s eyes widened almost comically and he turned around to face the fridge so fast he almost fell out of his chair. “Donghyuck, there are cameras! You’re not safe!”

“What’s the big scary mafia boss gonna do? Murder me?” 

There was an audible _smash_ of a jam jar hitting the floor, and then a curse.

“Renjun.” Jeno clasped Renjun’s hands across the counter. “Please don’t murder him. He’s my best friend.”

 _If he wasn’t your best friend, he would have been dead the moment he barged in on my employee brunch meeting all those weeks ago,_ Renjun thought.

He cast a curious look down at Jeno’s hands on his, recognizing vaguely that he didn’t feel any of his usual distaste at physical contact. He never did, with Jeno. 

Jeno quickly pulled away, mistaking Renjun’s curiosity for disapproval. He didn’t bother to correct his misconception. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe if Jeno thought he didn’t like it, he’d stop inadvertently making Renjun’s heart beat faster. 

“I thought you were best friends with Na?” Renjun asked.

Jeno made a face. Bongsik wormed her way underneath his elbow and he gathered her up, holding her tight to his chest. “Jaemin and I . . . don’t see eye to eye lately.”

Renjun nudged Jeno’s phone, where the live stream from Ten was still ongoing, although muted. “Does it have to do with your disapproval of his participation in this man’s strip club?”

“I don’t disapprove of Ten’s club,” Jeno said. “I don’t disapprove of anything Ten does. He’s, like, my everything.”

Renjun narrowed his eyes before he could stop himself. “Your . . . everything.”

“I’d make another jab about you being jealous—”

 _Please no,_ Renjun thought.

“—but I’ll let you keep your dignity.” Jeno petted Bongsik’s ears flat. “The shit with Jaemin . . . I don’t know. I don’t want to think about it.” 

He shook the thought off with a matching shake of his head, then asked, “So do you have any more paperwork for me? Even though it’s like, technically not _paper_ work anymore. Holo-work, I guess.”

Ever since that night with the bloodied paper cranes, Renjun had made the decision to ban origami, as well as transfer over to a purely electronic interface. Jeno’s office was outfitted with at least four different computers, a big-screen TV, and a variety of holo-pads. Jeno was painfully slow at typing, but at least the digital system made it easier for him to copy and paste foreign languages into Internet translators. 

“I don’t have paperwork,” Renjun said, “but I do have a job that needs to get done.”

“Name it,” Jeno said.

“We’re taking a trip to the York contempire. And you’re coming with me. ”

“. . . Why?” 

“Because it’s where the weaponsmaster lives.”

Jeno stood up. “Oh, I’ve heard about her! A couple days ago, I processed her order for fifty nerf guns, imported from Taiwan with a destination of New York. They should have arrived by now. I ought to check the delivery status.” He paused. “Wait. Why does the weaponsmaster need fifty nerf guns?”

“That is beyond me,” Renjun said, with a solemn nod.

“I remember researching her once, during a lunch break. She’s kinda badass. Finds the craftiest ways to weaponize technology into cutting-edge tools. I wonder how she does it, you know? Oh God, I’ll actually get the chance to meet her.”

 _You’re too curious about the world to stay a secretary,_ Renjun thought, not for the first time.

Bongsik meowed. Renjun’s gaze fell on her. 

_Curiosity killed the cat._ Determination tightened inside him. _Not if I can help it._

“The weaponsmaster and I are going to teach you how to use more than just Byeongkwan’s pitiful pistols,” he said. “We’re taking my private jet. We’ll be back before dinner.”

###

The private jet was a literal house with wings, in Jeno’s opinion. He was pretty sure it could be converted into a completely self-sufficient bunker hideaway. It had a bedroom, a living room, a legitimately nice bathroom, a pool table, a piano, and a snack bar. 

“Make yourself at home,” Renjun said, dropping into one of the armchairs and pulling out his holo-phone.

“Oh my God,” Jeno murmured, running his hand down the fleurs-de-li wallpaper. It was painted in a hue he’d never even seen before, which could only mean it was an incredibly expensive color.

What was even more impressive about it all was that Renjun had not one, not two, but _three_ of these luxurious vehicles. When Jeno had entered the jet hangar of the mansion, his jaw had positively dropped at the sight of the triplet jets, sitting side by side.

“Lee Taeyong has quite more than I do,” Renjun had said, upon noticing Jeno’s awe. “I think he’s got upwards of twenty-six, so far. He lets his men fly them in their downtime.”

Jeno thought back to the chubby-cheeked, ocean-voiced boy, Felix, that he’d met at the summit long ago. He couldn’t imagine Felix in the cockpit of a jet.

“I know how to fly one myself,” Renjun said. “Pretty standard stuff.”

The flight to the New York contempire was about half an hour. Jeno lounged in his seat, messed with his phone, played pool at the table by himself, and took a healthy amount of selfies of it all, just to show to Chenle and Mark later. Lately he’d been spending a lot of time reconnecting with his brothers—day by day, every time they had a meal together or watched a TV show sitting side by side, it was starting to feel just a little bit like the good old days.

The flight was over before Jeno expected it to be. The jet touched down in a small, private airport. After climbing out, they took the subway to the weaponsmaster’s headquarters.

“She’s 5’3” and looks like a doll,” Renjun warned Jeno as they walked the rest of the way down the street toward their destination. It was in sight: a dome-roofed gymnasium, gleaming in spite of the dismal cloudiness of the New York sky. “But be careful. She’s not to be underestimated.”

Jeno nodded. After all, Renjun himself was only 5’6”, and no one trifled with him. “What are we visiting her for?” 

They’d reached the doors of the gymnasium. Jeno reached to pull them open for Renjun, but found them locked.

Renjun pressed his palm against the wall beside the door. There was a buzzing noise and the space around Renjun’s fingers flashed white for a brief moment before the doors slid back in admittance. 

“We’re going to find you a weapon you like,” he said. “Come on, let’s go in.”

 _Why do I need a weapon_ , Jeno thought, but Renjun had already walked on, so he hurried to follow. The doors shut and locked behind them. This place seemed to have pretty high security—he wondered what kind of things it could be housing. Battle axes? Nuclear weapons?

Somewhere in the building reverberated the clash of steel on steel, and Jeno perked up. _Swords?_

“Kim?” called Renjun easily. “Are you here?”

The clashing stopped. A woman poked her head out of the nearest doorway in the hall. She wore a skintight, long-sleeved white shirt with a dozen silver necklaces as well as two dangling pearl earrings. “ _Huang!_ ” she squealed, her voice clear and high. “Is that you? Oh my gosh, come in.”

“Jeno, this is Kim Chungha,” Renjun said, walking into the room. “Kim, this is my secretary, Lee Jeno.”

Jeno tentatively entered the room. It had a high ceiling decked out in a series of circular light fixtures. The floor, which was organized in long, narrow rectangular sections, felt slightly soft and gummy underneath Jeno’s boots. 

Chungha lay her fencing sword down onto the ground. “I was training,” she said, undoing her ponytail. Her long peroxide blonde hair fell to her waist. “Did you come to learn how to fence, Huang? How did you get past the front doors? I locked them for today.”

“I hacked into your database on the flight here and entered my ID information,” Renjun said, with an unapologetic shrug. 

“I could have just let you in, you know,” Chungha said, with a frown.

“Yes, but I saved you the trouble,” Renjun said. “I’m curious—who were you fencing with, if there’s no one else in the room?”

“Oh, him,” Chungha said, nodding at the corner of the room. There was the inconspicuous silhouette of someone hiding against the wall. “Why’s he hiding? Yoonoh, why are you hiding?”

With a huff the silhouette made its way out of the shadows. It was a man, carrying a sword like Chungha’s, with gelled hair and a nice shirt—immediately Jeno could tell he was rich. “Taeyong told me to stay low,” he said. He gave Renjun and Jeno each a curt nod. “Nice to meet you. My name is Jung Yoonoh.”

“The owner of the Color Factorial,” Jeno said, remembering the summit. “Why are you here?”

Chungha scooped up her sword. Light glinted off its steel surface, showing how it really wasn’t equipment for fencing, but a legitimate blade. “We were practicing. He came because he’s been cooking up some cute weapons lately, and he wanted to run them by me.”

Renjun’s eyes narrowed. “Cute weapons,” he echoed.

Yoonoh sighed, took out a rag, and started polishing his sword. “Chungha, please,” he sighed. “It’d be great if you didn’t tell my rival in business all about my secret agenda.”

“He’s not your rival in business,” Chungha said, swiveling to Renjun. Her nose was scrunched in doubt. It made her look like a bunny. “Isn’t Taeyong his rival in business?”

“Any enemy of my boyfriend is my enemy too,” Yoonoh said coolly, and for some reason, Jeno was struck with a strange sensation in his chest. Maybe it was the way Yoonoh threw that word “boyfriend” out there— _he and Taeyong really have their shit together,_ Jeno noted, not sure why he was noting it, not sure why he snuck a look at Renjun, not sure why anything was anywhere and not sure why they were here in New York right now.

“What sort of weapons?” Renjun asked. He was using his business voice, his mask-like voice. “Since when do you dabble in weaponry, Jung?”

“Since the deadmen injured that cop Jisoo,” Yoonoh said.

Jeno could tell Renjun wanted to ask more, but all he did was raise an eyebrow. “I see.”

Yoonoh walked over to the door, paused, and gave a short bow of farewell to Chungha. It looked comical, the sight of him with his buff build showing deference to someone so petite. She smiled and waved energetically at him. 

When he was gone, she turned to Jeno. “Okay, blondie, who are you? Why are you here?” She tapped the point of her sword against the floor. “You radiate big soft Samoyed energy, and I want to know what you’re doing in my gym.”

“I’m Renjun’s secretary,” Jeno said. “What is Samoyed energy?”

Chungha made a cooing noise. “The more you talk, the bigger it gets.”

“This is why we’re here,” Renjun interjected. “Because you can sense people’s potentials when it comes to their expertise in our field.”

“Our field,” Chungha repeated. “I thought secretaries didn’t have to go out in the field?”

“Yes,” Renjun said, “but.”

“Oh.” Chungha grinned. “You’ve got plans to promote him, huh? Good for you! I heard your previous lieutenant has been off the job for several months now. That kid radiated _enormous_ soft-brittle energy, and it was crazy. Almost like . . . mochi cakes, but speckled with sawdust.”

“If you were anybody else, I would be offended that you compared one of my employees to food,” Renjun said.

“Who’s promoting whom?” Jeno said. “What’s this about radiating energy?”

Chungha pursed her lips. “I have a gift, hun, that lets me sense things about people. What type of personality they have. It makes me valuable when they come asking for a good weapon fit.”

“And we’re here to find your weapon fit, Jeno,” said Renjun. “Dejun works with knives, most of the nine sisters use nunchucks, and Yangyang likes grenades. It varies from person to person.”

“Enough chatter.” Chungha strode past them, sword in hand. “Come with me. I’ll take you to the storage closets, Jeno, and you can pick out something you like.”

“Um, Renjun,” Jeno whispered as they were leaving the room.

“I know you’re confused, you’re wearing that confused puppy face,” Renjun said, as they neared a spacious hall full of doors. “Maybe Kim really was right when she said you were like a Samoyed. Good grief. Please just go with the flow for now, pick a weapon and we can go back home. I can explain everything later.”

Chungha threw open one of the doors in the hallway, exposing a closet full of spiky metal clubs that had curves like chicken thighs. The next closet yielded wooden staffs, tall and grainy and made of glossed bamboo. The next had machine guns, ones that looked so bulky that you might need two people to carry them. She went down the hall, opening closet by closet, and Jeno thought he’d become dizzy from looking at such a wide array of _things._

 _Lethal_ things.

One by one, Chungha handed the various items to Jeno. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do with them—she told him to “just hold them and tell me if it feels right”, but that wasn’t very descriptive, so mainly Jeno just stood there in the hall feeling stupid when everything she handed him just felt clumsy and alien.

Renjun watched the whole procedure with minimal interest, until finally he let out a sigh and said, “Kim, none of them are working.”

“Maybe it’s my fault,” Jeno said, at the same time that Chungha said, “It’s not his fault.”

“It didn’t take this long with the rest of my employees. Are you losing your touch? Please tell me you’ve got another hallway full of broom closets with a wider selection of weapons.”

Scowling, Chungha shook the boomerang in her hand at Renjun. “Okay, no, you don’t get to order me around in my own domain, no matter how fancy of a mafia king you think you are.”

Renjun spread his hands in defense. “I never called myself a king.”

“I’m trying my best here with Jeno, and it’s just taking a little slower than normal, but that’s _fine_.”

There was only one door left in the hall that they hadn’t opened yet. While Renjun and the weaponsmaster bickered, Jeno peeked inside it, his gaze falling on several dark, bulky shapes sitting side-by-side on the shelf. 

He opened the door wider and the light revealed the startling sight of nerf guns. Fifty of them, painted in absurdly bright colors and obviously meant to be used for adolescent recreation. _So this is where the nerf guns in that delivery went,_ Jeno thought. He reached out to take one of the toys off the shelf, then aimed it at the wall opposite him and squeezed the trigger.

He’d expected for a harmless pseudo-styrofoam bullet to come pinging out. Instead, a harsh rapid-fire stream of magenta-colored bubbles shot out, turning solid midair and embedding themselves in the wall with loud thuds. Jeno stared at the curl of smoke coming from the nozzle of what he’d thought was just one of the playthings he’d messed around with as a kid.

Renjun and Chungha had fallen silent to look at him. Chungha’s eyes went huge and she let out a gasp at the sight of her wall, being eaten up by the bubble-bullets that were starting to expand in wobbly and acidic rings of color. 

“What is _that_?” Jeno said, fascinated. He looked down at the weapon in his hands. It was lightweight, and balanced—he couldn’t explain how comfortable it felt in his grip. “I think this is the one.”

“It’s not for sale.” Chungha swiped it from him and put it back onto the shelf, closing the closet with her heel. It shut with a _bang_. Her eyes were fiery. Jeno was starting to see what Renjun had meant about not underestimating her.

“Why isn’t it for sale?” Renjun asked.

“It’s what Yoonoh and I have been working on.” Chungha squared her shoulders. “We’re still working out the kinks. It’s not finished.”

“How much did Jung bribe you to say that?” Renjun said.

“Give it up, Huang.”

“I can bribe you too,” Renjun said.

“No you can’t, Huang.”

“Are there any other weapons you liked here?” Renjun said, turning to Jeno, who blinked and looked down the hall at all of the closets they’d left open.

“No,” Jeno said, cautiously, because there hadn’t been anything that’d fit so nicely in his hands the way that the nerf gun had. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t use any of them. They’re all viable options. I can just pick one and learn how to use it.”

“That’s not how it works,” Renjun and Chungha chorused again, although Chungha seemed sour saying it this time.

Renjun turned to her with a gleam in his eyes. “Double,” he said.

“Double what?”

“Double whatever Jung gave you. That’s what I’ll give you.”

“ _No_ , Huang _._ ”

Her hand twitched on the grip of her sword. It looked like she might impale Renjun if he pressed anymore.

Amazingly, he persisted. “Triple, then.”

Suddenly Jeno was brought back to a long time ago back in an office in the sky, where he’d come to Renjun, then a stranger, asking for help to get revenge for Mark. The deja vu made him shiver. The Jeno of then would be shocked at the Jeno he was now: wearing a vantablack uniform in a weaponsmaster’s gymnasium in the upper-crust half of the Yorkian contempire.

“ . . . Triple?” she said.

“Yes,” Renjun said.

Half an hour later, Jeno and Renjun were climbing back into their jet with a briefcase carrying a brand-new color-shooting nerf gun.

###

On the jet ride back to the Los Angeles contempire, Jeno didn’t play with the pool table. Didn’t take selfies. Just sat in his chair, knees up to his chest, his gaze glued out the window. His eyes traced the valleys of clouds that dipped and rose beneath them.

Renjun asked what he was thinking about.

“Nothing,” Jeno said, which was the farthest thing from the truth, because he was thinking about Renjun and Renjun was the opposite of nothing. He knew that much. What Jeno didn’t know was what _kind_ of something he was supposed to be—an employer? A gunman? A criminal? A friend? All of the above?

Or . . . something else?

Jeno nursed his thoughts to himself. His eyes wandered over to Renjun, who was reading a holo-magazine.

After a couple moments, he raised his head, his dark almond-shaped eyes connecting with Jeno’s. 

Jeno looked away quickly. Renjun chuckled a little and looked back down at his magazine. Jeno exhaled and his hand came up to touch his own chest—he could feel it palpitating, like a runaway bird. 

###

_The boys were together all the time._

_Every day, every waking minute. They skipped class to see each other, even if at their age classes didn’t matter. They hung out at each others’ houses. One of them had two brothers and no parents, and the other had two parents and no brothers, so their lives fitted together like puzzle pieces. It was so breathtakingly simple: they were best friends, inseparable, even if neither of them really remembered why they’d begun hanging out in the first place._

_It didn’t matter. Not every soulmate story needed a striking conception or a cinematic moment of_ aha, that’s my soulmate.

_The boys didn’t care. All they really knew was that they belonged around each other. If destinies could be represented by spools of red yarn, theirs were tangled up so earnestly that neither of them knew which belonged to which._

_Neither of them expected the world to hack at their spools, slicing and dicing and leaving them in hopeless red tatters._

###

Chenle’s birthday was coming up, and he declared they should host a whole week of celebrations to commemorate. Today was meant to be the first night, the kick-off party—“I want to rent out a club and hire a DJ and get roaring drunk,” the high-schooler proclaimed, his hands on his hips.

“Uh,” Mark said. He looked at Jeno for help on how to proceed.

It had always been Mark who reined Chenle in when he got imaginative like this, but Jeno supposed now the responsibility had fallen on his own shoulders. “Lele, maybe let’s stick to something more legal,” he suggested.

“Fuck legality! I do what I want! Go where I want!”

“As long as Jeno says it’s okay,” added Jisung.

“. . . Yeah, as long as Jeno says it’s okay,” Chenle conceded.

“Curly fries and milkshakes sound like fun,” Jaemin said. He was standing off to the side of their group, looking out of place, and it had everything to do with the way Jeno was purposefully ignoring him and had been for the past twenty minutes. And the past few days, for that matter. “We could go to a fast food place.”

“I love fast food,” Chenle said.

“So do I,” Donghyuck piped up. “But only if Mark pays for my meal.”

“Chenle should pay for everyone’s meal,” Mark said, “because it’s his party, after all.”

“That’s not the way it works, naive brother of mine,” Chenle crowed, and all of the other boys nodded a little in obligated yet dejected agreement. “Y’all should be _thrilled_ at the opportunity to buy me food! Come on, let’s go, we can take Mark’s car.”

Mark looked defeated. On the ride to the diner that Donghyuck picked out, Jeno leaned over to his older brother and whispered, “How’s it going with wrapping your head around all of the money-related things in the world?”

“It’s so weird,” Mark said. “I still know how to drive, and I can speak English, and my basic motor skills are intact, but I have no concept of what makes something expensive and what makes something cheap and how money works. It doesn’t help that everything Renjun has in his house is so expensive that when Kunhang tries to teach me price tags, he never has any examples to use.”

“Sounds like a theme to me,” Donghyuck said. “You know? In a world made of money, Mark Lee is a confused little bumblebee who doesn’t know a thing.” From the backseat he reached up to pat Mark’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, though. I’ve got you.”

“Wait, wait, wait, since when am I a bumblebee?”

When they got to the diner, the humorous casual vibe was in full swing, and Jeno couldn’t deny how relieved he was for it. It was the first time all of them were hanging out as a unit. 

Jeno tried not to let his grudge with Jaemin put a hamper on the atmosphere. To do this, he tuned the other boy out entirely and acted as if he wasn’t there. What helped was that Jaemin seemed to be doing the same as well. 

“Curly fries,” Chenle said, to the part-timer manning the cash register at the diner. “I want a mountain of curly fries.”

“We’ve got fries in portions of large, jumbo, and party-sized,” droned the part-timer.

“Yes okay but do you have a mountain?”

“I’m afraid not, sir.”

“Don’t call him sir, that’ll just go to his head,” Donghyuck said. “We’ll take the party-sized portion.” He winked. “With extra barbecue sauce, I love barbecue sauce.”

“Stop flirting,” complained Mark, elbowing him in the side.

“And this man will take the bill,” Donghyuck said, elbowing Mark back with a sweet smile.

“I’m broke! I don’t have the funds—”

“I got you guys,” Jaemin said, and took out his wallet. He dug around for a moment, extracted a two-hundred dollar bill, and offered it to the part-timer with an apologetic look. “This is the smallest bill I have, it’d be nice if you could split it up.”

Chenle whooped. “Jaemin’s _rich_!”

Jeno stared at the two-hundred dollar bill, and the face of the current president of the United States stared back at him. He’d never seen such a large consolidated piece of money before.

Jaemin noticed him staring and quickly shook the bill for the part-timer to take. When they were done paying and had sat down, Jeno saw Jaemin trying to catch his eye, but he just set his lips in a thin line and pretended he couldn’t see him.

The curly fries were crisp and steaming hot, just the way Chenle liked it. Jisung poked one of them tentatively, shivered at its unnatural shape, and Chenle gasped because _you’ve never had a curly fry before oh my God why didn’t you tell me_ , and then proceeded to set the entire portion in front of Jisung and urge him to eat as much as he wanted.

They didn’t bother ordering actual food. The fries were more than enough. Jeno nibbled on a few, without much appetite.

He was contemplating stealing Donghyuck’s root beer when he felt a hand seize his arm. It was Jaemin, his eyes stormy.

“We have to talk.”

“No,” Jeno said, and kept eating his fries.

Jaemin dragged him from his booth and out of the diner, the door clanging noisily behind them. In the low glow of the streetlights, Jaemin’s eyeliner and lip tint looked intimidating—if Jeno hadn’t known better, he’d feel nervous right now.

But this was Jaemin. No matter how many dollar bills he had in his wallet or how much expensive makeup he liked to wear these days. Jeno shook off Jaemin’s hand and said, “I don’t walk to talk about this right now.”

“I don’t care,” Jaemin said stoutly. “I owe you an explanation. And you giving me the silent treatment has given _me_ time to figure out how to explain myself in a way that you’ll understand.”

“What is there that I don’t already understand?”

“I did it to help you,” Jaemin said. “Stripping, clubbing—you’ve never had a problem with the idea of those things. I know you’re not that conservative.”

“I don’t care what job you have. You can do whatever you want to do with your body. I don’t own you.” Jeno narrowed his eyes. “And I don’t know why you felt like you owned me enough to take my financial situation into your own hands.”

“Fuck that,” Jaemin said. “I don’t own you and have never tried to.”

“Then why are you treating me like a beggar?”

“You’re my friend,” Jaemin insisted. “That’s why I did it.”

“Well,” Jeno said. “Why didn’t you tell _me_ about the stripping job? If it makes such a large paycheck, you could have just let me know and I would have just done it myself.”

“Jeno, you can’t dance, I’m sorry—”

“But can _you_?”

“Yes,” Jaemin said, simply.

Jeno felt like he might die of exasperation. “Okay, whatever. Whatever. You should be dancing for yourself, not for me. A charity case is the farthest fucking thing from what I want to be.” 

He made to head into the restaurant again, not intent on carrying on the conversation.

“Then what do you call what Huang is doing for you?”

Jeno turned back, caught off-guard by Jaemin’s barbed tone.

“Yeah, there, I said it,” Jaemin said, with a glare that meant he wasn’t going to let Jeno walk away from this conversation until one of them was crying. “I know you, Jeno. I knew that you wouldn’t be okay with me trying to provide for you.”

“Exactly, and I—”

“I’m not _done_ . Jeno, if you’re going to throw a fit about me—me, your best friend since we were both scrawny, pimply teenagers—just trying to help you out, fine. I don’t care. But you barely _know_ Huang. It’s been, what? A couple months since you met him? And you’re okay with living in his house, taking advantage of all his assets, letting him provide for your every necessity—you don’t even have your own car. You let his chauffeur handle your every transportation. You’re exploiting him. How does that shit make sense?”

Jeno’s throat felt dry. “You don’t have a car either, Jaemin.”

Jaemin’s eyes flared. “So fucking _what_? At least I pay for my own taxi fares, don’t I?”

“It’s been four months since Renjun and I met. That’s a third of a year—plenty of time to get to know someone.”

“I can’t believe you’ve been counting the months,” Jaemin hissed. 

Jeno set his jaw. “I’m not Renjun’s charity case, if that’s what you’re trying to get at.”

“No, I don’t know what his motives are. I’m just saying, you’re using him. I don’t get how you’re fine with that.”

“I’m not using him! He and I are _friends_. He’s helping me.”

“Isn’t that what I just said to you? About me trying to help you out because I’m your friend? So why is that situation so much less acceptable from the one you’ve got with Huang?”

Jeno sputtered.

“ _Oh_ ,” Jaemin drawled, as if he’d just had an eye-opening epiphany. He nodded a little, with a tiny smug smile. It was the sign of someone who sensed he was going to win this argument and win it badly. “I see.”

His tone filled Jeno with dread.

“No, no. Stop. You’re getting it all wrong.”

“Am I? No. I don’t think so.”

“You—” Jeno’s nose stung. He felt hot and cold and hot all over. “You were the one who teased me about going on dates with him in the first place.”

Jaemin threw up his arms. “I was joking! I didn’t mean it! I didn’t think you’d actually go and develop a full fucking crush on him!”

“I never—I don’t—ugh, you’re not—”

“Shut up, Jeno, I see the way you look at him. And it’s a disaster waiting to happen. That man will ruin you. You have no idea what you’re getting into.” 

“No, I look at him that way because—well, because I know him in ways you could never understand!” Jeno was nearly shouting. He needed Jaemin to _understand_. There was so much that Jaemin didn’t know: the flashbacks, the memories, the history that Jeno was becoming certain he and Renjun shared— “He and I—we were—we had—before you ever came along—”

Jaemin scoffed. “Now you’re just spouting nonsense. Come talk to me when you have a real excuse, okay, honey?”

The abuse of the nickname snapped Jeno’s tether. All of the sudden, he was calm.

Deadly calm.

He knew Jaemin saw the change in him by the way he involuntarily took a step back, eyes widening. 

“I’m telling you for the last time, Jaemin,” Jeno said, voice cooler than ice, “Renjun is my friend. You don’t know anything about it, okay? Maybe I’m losing my mind a little and maybe there’s something incredibly fucked up with my memories, but if there’s one thing I’m certain about it’s that you don’t have the right to make me feel small for feeling what I feel.”

Jaemin stared at him, wordless.

“So . . .” Jeno tried to come up with something final.

But he was tired. And his curly fries were probably cold by now. And he’d just wanted to enjoy one night with his friends and his brothers—and now, that was ruined.

“So please just fuck off,” Jeno said at last.

He turned on his heel and walked back into the diner, not bothering to look behind him.

###

_Jeno had always sort of expected to fall in love with Jaemin._

_He waited, waited, waited—for their friendship to deepen, for their rose-pink childish intimacy to redden with passion. That moment never came. He and Jaemin were a set, but they were a set of a fork and a knife, not two spoons. Their souls didn’t fit each other like that._

_In another life, one of them might have fallen in love with the other, and endless hopeless pining might ensue. But that was not this life and Jeno and Jaemin were okay with the way they were. It was only an issue when it came to people who assumed they were together—the misconception came understandably often._

_“Mark’s got Donghyuck,” Jaemin said once, his ankles hooked with Jeno’s as they lay side by side in the backyard hammock. “And Chenle doesn’t swing.”_

_“Chenle has Chenle,” Jeno agreed. “He’s practically a couple all on his own.”_

_“So what does that make us?” Jaemin said. “I feel like we’re just, like, sixth-wheelers. There’s Mark and Donghyuck, then Chenle and Chenle, and then you and me, but you and I aren’t a thing, so . . .”_

_“I don’t think wheeling can happen in groups with even numbers, Jaem.”_

_“It happened with us.”_

_A sigh. Jeno tucked his head in the crook of Jaemin’s shoulder. “Whatever,” he said. “It’s not a big deal.”_

###

Jeno’s calm lasts for a total of three minutes. During this span of time, he reclaimed his space in his booth, ignoring the intrigued glance that Mark sent his way when it became obvious that Jaemin wasn’t coming back inside the diner to join them. Jeno pulled out his phone, scrolled through nothing. Didn’t blink, for fear it would bring everything crashing down. He didn’t want to cry, not in front of Chenle and Jisung—who were busy battling each other with their sundae spoons—or even in front of Mark and Donghyuck, who were taking selfies and doing a Chubby Bunny challenge with ice cubes.

 _Ice cubes,_ Jeno thought.

He dug around in his root beer, but all of the ice had already melted. He got up and ordered an ice water at the cash register. The bored-looking part-timer passed him a greasy cup of questionable-looking liquid. Jeno took it and quickly ducked into the restroom, locking it after he entered. 

It was a bathroom with four stalls. He locked the main door, just so no one else could come in. It wasn’t a civically considerate choice but all of the stalls were currently empty, except for Jeno, who wanted to be alone, and also what was the goddamn point of being a mafia member if he couldn’t make use of the lock tricks he’d picked up? 

In his palms he cradled the ice cubes from the drink. The cold helped him focus.

_Jaemin strips. Donghyuck kills._

_Mark used to be dead. Jisung shoots guns, and so do I._

The only normal person here was Chenle. Jeno wanted to laugh.

“Oh,” he sighed, leaning against the inside of the bathroom door. There was no meaning to his lamentation; that was all it was. A lamentation, coming from a person who was barely an adult, a person who’d always held the strange position of sixth wheel, a person who’d spent countless nights reading and rereading the mafia handbook, scouring for any mention of that one topic he was desperate to find. Was the word romance afforded a footnote? _That_ was the more practical question, compared to the other one, the one that Jeno hated having to think about. 

And instead of forming it into words—because that would make it seem real, and Jeno couldn’t trust anything that seemed real—he formulated a half-cooked version. It manifested in three simple words:

_Could it be?_

Middle schoolers, buried friendships.

_Could it be?_

Jeno waited until all of the ice from his cup was melted. Then he washed his hands and walked outside to find the rest of the boys impatiently waiting. Mark was going to drive them all back home.

###

Jaemin downed eight shot glasses of vodka at the bar across the street before he knew what he was doing.

Then he flagged down a taxi and drove to the car dealership that Byeongkwan had mentioned a couple days ago. The salesperson, a middle-aged woman with too-red lips and too-long lashes, looked delighted when Jaemin walked in—probably because she knew that a drunk rich person made for a pliable customer. Jaemin didn’t care.

He picked out a car and paid for it out of pocket.

“You gonna join the race downtown tonight?” the saleswoman asked with a sly smile, her hand resting on Jaemin’s forearm. Her nails were nothing short of claws. “I hear it’s going to be a blast. With this BloodTwin, you’d have the hottest car on the road.”

Jaemin smiled back and gestured toward his new car. “Is that what she’s called?” 

He and Jeno had always been mistaken for either lovers or twins. The same old shit, day after day. Jaemin was tired of it. 

It was time to spice things up.

“Yeah, I think I’ll be at that race tonight.”

###

When Johnny burst into the dressing room, breathless, Ten knew something was wrong.

Johnny had a knack for styling hair in a signature way that looked casual but belied its meticulous procedure. Ten’s signature hairstyle was that mussed, windblown look. Johnny used it on himself plenty too. But the way it looked right now was the opposite of purposeful—it looked disheveled, as if he’d run his fingers through it one too many times, and his shoulders were chock-full of tension, which could mean only two things.

“Either you’ve just gotten laid,” Ten said, “or someone’s died.”

Johnny cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I’m still a virgin, and no one’s dead. But I think he might be soon if we don’t do something about it.”

On another night, Ten would have gotten out of his chair and yelled, _Johnny Seo there’s no way you’re a fucking virgin_. It would have been funny to see Johnny’s reaction, and Ten was in the mood for funny things. He’d just finished a fansign and his veins were fueled with the positive energy from all his followers.

But Johnny looked agitated and on edge and not in the mood for funny things, so when Ten stood up, he put his hand on Johnny’s shoulder and spoke in his quiet voice.

“Babe, what’s wrong?”

“It’s Jaemin. I don’t—” Johnny shook his head. “What do I do? He’s drunk and out circuit racing.”

“What?” Ten’s hand slipped off Johnny’s shoulder. “He’s underage. And since when can he race?”

“He sent me a selfie?” Johnny shoved out his phone. There’s a photo of Jaemin, giving the camera a too-bright grin and patting the hood of a sleek, multi-thousand dollar black vehicle with wheels painted in alternating stripes of bloodred and bloodblue. “Look, look at that—he’s definitely drunk, he bought himself a racecar—”

“Of course he did,” Ten scoffed, grabbing his jacket off the shelf. He was still dressed in his fansign clothes, which were a see-through mesh top and a pair of tight jeans, but he had no time to change into something more discreet. “He earns six figures and this is what he does with the money. Unacceptable.”

“Ten, he has no _parents_ ,” Johnny said, sounding more distraught than Ten had ever heard him in the thirteen years they’d been working together. “He told me about them. His mom and dad can’t do shit to stop him right now, even if they wanted to—which they don’t, because they’re both assholes—and I feel like I just have to step in—”

“Of course we do.” Ten shouldered into his jacket and strode out the door, heels clicking with each step. 

Johnny followed. They left the building and headed for Ten’s car. As Ten slid into the driver’s seat and placed his hands on the wheel, the car responded, coming to life with a purr. 

It’d taken him years to figure out how to handle a car that mainly had a mind of its own—and even then, it wasn’t even a proper racecar. In the modern age, racecars were practically sentient machines, programmed to drive faster than sound and cross the finish line as fast as possible and at any cost. Their drivers had to be highly experienced and finely attuned to the engines, lest they find themselves overwhelmed by the speed and fervor of the vehicle. Most racecar drivers met their dooms on the track.

“Track the photo location,” Ten bit out.

“I don’t know how.” Johnny held up his phone helplessly.

Ten grabbed it from him and pressed it against the center of the car wheel. Its sensors scanned the screen, burbled an affirmative reply, and up on the car’s mini screen popped directions to the location where the photo was taken.

Ten tossed the phone back to Johnny and slammed his foot down on the pedal. They took off, speeding out of the parking lot and into the night-clad streets of Los Angeles.

“Why do you think he’s doing it?” Johnny murmured. 

“I don’t know,” Ten said, turning a street corner. “All I know is that kid is both gay and obnoxiously talented, just like me—and I’m attached to that.”

They arrived at the race track in fourteen minutes. It was an abandoned reservoir that had been repurposed for recreational holo-racing—judging by the contraband holo-cigs and plethora of pseudo-styrofoam cups littering the ground, it was in no way a legal place to be. A crowd was gathered around the circuit. There was an unprecedented amount of fancy cars, some of which people had brought to show off, others of which had been brought to race.

Ten knew his own car couldn’t measure up. On a pettier day, he would have been miffed at the thought of not having the nicest toy in town.

But not tonight. He parked his car and climbed out, Johnny on his heels. The night air was chilly and sharp, tinged with the smells of sweat and danger, and the neon yellow of the holo-circuit permeated the darkness with a vibrant glow.

“Let’s split up,” Ten said to his stylist. “We have to find him before he gets on the track.”

Johnny nodded and darted off into the crowd. Ten took a deep breath before plunging in as well.

He kept his eyes on the ground, knowing it’d be more efficient to search for Jaemin’s car rather than for Jaemin himself. Judging by the selfie he’d sent, it was obvious that Jaemin had bought himself a BloodTwin—the hottest car on the market this half of the year, what with its distinctive red-and-blue striped wheels. Ten shuffled by cars with lime green wheels, cars with wheels studded with jewels, even cars with wheels shaped in odd oblong shapes. But none of them were Jaemin’s car.

He stepped on someone’s foot by accident. A woman with a nose piercing turned to him with a glare. “What do you want, dude?”

“I’m looking for my brother,” Ten said. The fib came easily to him. “He’s new here and he doesn’t know what the fuck he’s doing.” That part wasn’t a lie. “Do you know where he might be?”

“A rookie?” She squinted and stood on her toes to peer over the crowd. “Thought I saw him a couple minutes ago. He was making bets, you know, and dumb ones too. Made one on himself winning against Hanbin first try—against _Hanbin,_ who doesn’t even drive clean.”

“What does that mean?” Ten asked, unsure if he really wanted to know the answer.

“Means he likes to get pushy on the circuit. Won’t play nice, and won’t fuck with lawsuits either. A rookie wouldn’t stand a chance.” She snorted. “I’m sorry in advance for the loss of your brother.”

Ten swore and pushed past the woman.

A couple taut minutes later, he felt someone seize his arm. It was Johnny, looking breathless, dragging a disgruntled-looking teenage boy in his wake.

“Ten—”

A roaring cheer swept through the crowd around them, drowning out Johnny’s words. Ten pulled him aside, into a pocket of empty space. They were near the circuit and he could hear the racers’ engines revving up for the race due to start soon.

“This is Yangyang,” Johnny said, jerking his head at the teenage boy beside him. “He’s one of Jaemin’s pals.”

Yangyang pulled away with a scowl. “I’m no one’s pal, you old man,” he spat out in rapid Mandarin.

“Bitch, I can understand you,” Ten snapped, switching languages fluidly, and Yangyang’s eyebrows shot up. “Do you know where Jaemin is?”

“I . . . might have seen him,” sniffed Yangyang. “I frequent these tracks. I was pretty surprised to see him show up.”

“Where _is_ he?” Ten asked.

Yangyang shrugged. 

_Insolent teenagers, being difficult for no reason,_ Ten thought. “If you don’t tell me, my boyfriend will beat you up.”

Yangyang pursed his lips, considered, and unbelievably drawled, “Bet.”

Ten wanted to pop him in the jaw. He turned to his stylist, switched to English. “Johnny, flex your biceps.”

Looking slightly confused, Johnny obeyed.

Yangyang spluttered and took a step back at the sight of Johnny’s massive, bulging arms.

“Want him to beat you up?” asked Ten. “No? Thought so. Tell me where Jaemin is.”

The teenager swallowed and reached up to point with his finger out at the race track.

Ten’s heart dropped. His head whipped over to see eight very large cars there on the circuit, hovering ever so slightly above the magnetic surface of the holo-track. The cars were all lined up in a staggered formation; the one in the very, very back was painted bright orange and had the name KIM HANBIN written on its flanks. Slightly further up was another car, this one shiny black, with wheels painted the colors of blood.

###

Jaemin flexed his hands on the wheel of his car.

His fingers were shaking. He’d never had alcohol before tonight. The lanes of the holo-track were blurry in his vision.

 _Just one race,_ he assured himself. _Then you’ll have proved yourself._

Who was he trying to prove himself to? What was he doing this for?

 _Whatever,_ Jaemin thought. _Just_ — _one race._

###

Johnny swore at the sight of Jaemin in the BloodTwin. 

“So, uh, who are you two, exactly?” Yangyang said.

“Chittaphon Leechaiyapornkul,” Ten snapped.

Yangyang blinked. Then his jaw fell. “Wait. The celebrity? Jeno’s crush? Why do _you_ care if Jaemin’s racing?”

“Jaemin is _intoxicated_. He’s going to kill himself.”

“We have to stop him,” Johnny said. He made to run forward, then stopped, likely sensing it was a terrible idea to run out into the race track without warning. “How do we stop him?” 

“Does Jeno know that Jaemin’s out here?” Ten demanded Yangyang. 

“No? Probably not, no.”

“Call him. Tell him to get his ass over here right now. He’ll know what to do.”

“But—the race is starting in two minutes.” Yangyang pointed up at the holo-board of blue lasers forming a stopwatch countdown. “I don’t think there’s time—”

“ _Call him_ or consider yourself _fucked_ ,” Ten hissed.

Yangyang had his holo-phone out and was dialing before Ten could say another word. 

Ten looked up at the holo-board. One minute and fifty seconds left. “Small sheep, where’s your car?”

“Okay, no, just because my name _means_ Sheep Sheep—”

Ten noticed that a couple paces away was a low-lying racecar painted red with two white stripes running down its hood. _This will do_ , he thought.

“Keys,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Like fuck I’m letting you drive my baby.” Yangyang clutched his jacket pocket with one hand and held his phone closer to his ear with the other hand. “Oh—Jeno’s picking up! Jeno, there’s sort of an emergency going on right now, I’m downtown at the circuit, Ten says to come quick—it’s a long story, it’s—it’s got to do with Jaemin—”

“ _Jaemin’s gonna die,_ ” Johnny roared into the phone. 

“Old man, ugh, I think you just broke my eardrum—”

Ten swiped the car keys from Yangyang’s jacket pocket and climbed into the red car, locking the doors after him. The holo-board above read one minute two seconds. Ten settled into the driver’s seat, sizing up the gears in front of him: it looked easy enough to drive. Yangyang had taped labels to all of the different buttons. He punched the button labeled On and and the car revved to life. 

“Hey!” Yangyang shouted from outside. “Car thief!”

 _If this goes right, you’ll get your baby back without a scratch,_ Ten thought grimly, although he wasn’t sure how likely it was that this would go right.

Johnny’s eyes lit up in understanding when he saw what Ten was planning to do. He immediately turned to the surrounding crowd and started waving his arms. “Out of the way! We’ve got an impromptu racer! Everyone out of the way!”

Ten pressed the sound effect button on the armrest of the driver’s seat, and an enormous horn blasted from the car’s external speakers, effectively scattering everyone in a ten-foot radius. Johnny dragged Yangyang off to the side, the younger yelling obscenities in Chinese.

The holo-billboard read forty-three seconds. The racecars on the track were tense, waiting for the whistle to blow.

 _This sheep’s car engine should be warm by now, right?_ Ten thought. 

His knowledge of how to use such a high-quality vehicle was limited, but he at least knew there was a grace period between when a holo-car was turned on and when it had warmed up enough to hover.

Well, whenever it was, it didn’t matter. Ten hit the Hover button on the side of the wheel.

The car stayed firmly put on the ground. Maybe it needed to be on the circuit first?

Johnny was pointing frantically at the holo-board; it read twenty seconds. 

_Can’t believe I’m doing this shit,_ Ten thought, and pressed down on the pedal.

###

Jeno had just gotten out of the shower and was drying off his hair when his phone rang on the nightstand. With a sigh he sat down on the edge of his bed and checked the caller ID.

“Yangyang? What’s up?”

“Jeno’s picking up!” It was Yangyang’s voice. He sounded hoarse. “Jeno, there’s sort of an emergency going on right now, I’m downtown at the circuit, Ten says to come quick—it’s a long story, it’s—it’s got to do with Jaemin—”

“Yangyang, wait. Slow down. What’s going on?” Jeno remembered Yangyang had mentioned earlier that tonight was this month’s holo-racing event.

“ _Jaemin’s gonna die_ ,” shouted a new voice. Ten’s stylist. 

Jeno paled. “What?”

Johnny kept talking, spewing all sorts of stuff about drunk driving and stupid kids and something called a BloodTwin, and halfway through, Jeno was scrambling to his feet. He hurried up the glass staircase. 

By the time he got to the top floor of the mansion, Johnny was finishing his rant. “The race starts in a couple minutes, you don’t have much time—you need a very, very fast vehicle, to get down here before Jaemin starts racing—”

Jeno burst into Renjun’s office. The boss looked up with a surprised look.

“I need your jet,” Jeno said.

###

The sheep’s car accelerated faster than Ten expected, slamming him backward against the back of his seat. When he hit the track, he was seized by the sensation of _flight_ —it filled him with weightlessness, even freedom. He could tell why a lot of holo-racers were addicted to the rush.

“Get off the track!” someone from the outside crowd shouted.

The holo-board read fourteen seconds. Ten applied tentative pressure to the pedal. The car shot forward, gliding through the air like a missile, and he quickly reined it, maneuvering it with the wheel into the position he wanted.

 _Yes._ At this angle, he was three-quarters down the track, splayed horizontally across three innermost lanes. It was the perfect position to intercept the racers—all he had to do was sit in the middle of the race track and hope that the ruthless Kim Hanbin didn’t drive into him.

 _He wouldn’t_ , Ten thought. _You’d have to be drunk to hit a motionless car sitting right in front of you._

Eight seconds. 

“Get out of the car!” Now more and more people were shouting it. 

_Oh shit,_ Ten thought, _Jaemin_ is _drunk._

Six seconds. Ten threw open the car door and tumbled to the ground, which was a foot farther away than normal, considering the car was hovering above the track. Then he was running, making a beeline to the sidelines of the track. Three seconds. Two. 

“TEN, HURRY!” screamed Johnny.

The whistle blew. There was the cacophony of the eight racecars spurring into movement.

The noise drowned out all of Ten’s thoughts, and the world went black. 

###

It took Ten a moment to realize that he wasn’t dead.

Everything had gone black because the yellow light of the holo-track had abruptly been turned off, plunging the circuit and its crowd into darkness and chaotic confusion. Ten was curled up on his knees on the track, his hands cupped to shield his neck, even though the action would not have helped him much in the case of him being run over.

“Ten.” Someone was dragging him to his feet. “Ten, are you okay, please tell me you’re okay—”

“Johnny,” he gasped, stumbling up. “I’m fine. What’s going on?”

He heard his stylist breathe an enormous sigh of relief. “I don’t know.”

There was a great jarring noise coming from somewhere in the sky. Ten craned his head up to see.

It was a helicopter, silver and bright, its blades slicing through the air faster than the eye could follow. It was descending rapidly, and the crowd was shouting and yelling to _run, run, run._

“Should we run?” Ten asked Johnny, still not sure what was happening.

The helicopter sent out a beam of light, illuminating the darkness. The shapes of the eight racecars were visible on the track, although they were quickly dispersing. Ten glimpsed the sight of Kim Hanbin’s orange car, speeding away. He strained his eyes to spot Jaemin’s BloodTwin.

“I think the feds are in that helicopter,” Johnny said. “Someone turned off all the track lights because they knew they were making us more visible. Circuit racing is the opposite of legal.” He tugged Ten’s arm. “We should go.”

Ten resisted. He squinted at the helicopter.

The vehicle had no logo.

“That’s not the feds,” he said.

Its blades were deafeningly loud. By now, the majority of the crowd had disappeared, gotten into their cars and driven off like spooked rodents. Johnny and Ten stayed, standing silently, watching as the helicopter landed onto the ground and its blades finally slowed to a stop. 

Silence swept across the clearing. 

There was a groan off to the side. 

It was Yangyang, standing next to his car, which was still suspended in the middle of the holo-track. He frantically checked the car for scratches and damage—before whirling to Ten with an acutely acidic look.

“You. _You_ ,” he said. “You were going to use my precious baby car as a meat shield!”

“Well,” Ten said. “It didn’t end up happening anyway, so.”

Yangyang cast a fraught look at the helicopter. “And now my boss is here! And all of tonight’s fun is ruined!”

“Your boss?” Johnny said.

A telltale crash came from the direction of the helicopter. It was the ramp, hitting the ground as it extended from the door of the vehicle. Out strode two figures wearing matching black turtlenecks.

###

As soon as Jeno got off the ramp, he made a beeline toward the shape of the one sole racecar still sitting on the track’s starting line.

Renjun walked fast to match his pace. 

“Jaem’s gotta be okay,” Jeno babbled to himself. The chilly night air cut into his lungs like a knife. “If he’s—if he’s not okay—”

Renjun slipped his hand in Jeno’s. The unexpected warmth made Jeno falter in step.

“I’m here,” Renjun said lowly. In his tone were a dozen other meanings: _It’ll be okay. I’m with you. Breathe._

Jeno swallowed, squeezed his hand back, and kept walking.

Jaemin’s racecar gleamed, clearly more expensive than any other car Jeno had ever seen— _he wasn’t exaggerating when he said that stripping made good money,_ Jeno realized belatedly, before he approached and ripped open the car door.

His best friend was sitting in the driver’s seat, knees drawn to his chest and his eyes wide and bloodshot. He stared into nothing.

“Jaemin?” Jeno said warily.

He turned to Jeno slowly, with a blank look on his face.

“Hey.”

Then he burst into tears.

Jeno pulled him out of the seat, gripping him to his chest in a crushing hug. Sobbing, Jaemin leaned on him like a limp noodle. “Are you—why did you—a racecar? Circuit racing?” Jeno tried to make sentences, yet all he could voice were half-formed phrases stunted by fear. “Jaemin, fuck, _fuck_ , you can’t scare me like this. I hate you so much, you _ass_.”

“I’m sorry,” Jaemin sobbed. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry and I’m drunk and I’m scared and I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”

There was no telling how long he stood there, crying into Jeno’s neck. Jeno held him tightly. Beside them, Renjun stayed quiet, and after a while, Ten and Johnny and Yangyang approached, the latter looking dutifully sheepish.

Ten started to say something, but Renjun held up his hand.

“You seem irritated. Now’s not the time.”

“I can be irritated if I want,” huffed Ten. “I nearly died for that kid.”

Yangyang spoke up. “Technically you could have just put my car on autopilot and then pushed it out into the track,” he said. “Like, you didn’t need to _be_ inside.”

Ten gave him a murderous look. “And you’re telling me this _now_?”

“I tried to tell you earlier, but—you just honked your horn like a boomer and made everyone move out of the way.”

Ten said something loud and harsh in Mandarin, to which Yangyang replied with an equally cutting tone. Renjun held up both hands and said something that made both of them fall silent, conceding to just glare daggers at each other with their eyes. 

“Jeno.” Jaemin’s voice was small and thick from crying. He pawed at his own face, trying to wipe away his tears.

“Mhm?” 

A sniffle. “Please don’t be mad at me anymore.”

“It’s—I’m not.” He reached up to thumb away the tears on Jaemin’s cheeks. “I shouldn’t have blown up at you and stuff.”

“And I . . .” Jaemin lowered his voice to a whisper. “I shouldn’t have made you feel bad about having a crush on Huang.”

“It’s okay.” Jeno offered a weak smile. “I’m just glad you’re not dead in a car wreck.”

“You can thank me for that,” interjected Ten loudly.

“You did shit!” Yangyang exclaimed. “All you did is steal things you don’t own and go places you don’t belong! A lousy-ass hero, if I ever saw one.” 

“Ten _is_ a hero,” defended Johnny. “And he’s amazing and perfect.”

“I like that.” A grin spread over Ten’s face. He nudged the taller male. “Say that again, babe.”

“You’re amazing.”

“Just get a _room_ already,” Yangyang huffed. “Cheesy boyfriends.”

“Huh?” Johnny said.

Ten cleared his throat. “I—I was just bluffing. We’re . . . not actually boyfriends.”

Johnny’s eyes widened. A look of realization dawned over his face, as if he were finally putting the pieces of some enormous puzzle together. “Wait, Ten,” he said. “Wait, wait, wait. Do you . . . want to be boyfriends?”

Ten turned toward him quickly. “Maybe. Yes. Yes, I do. Of _course_ I do, you oblivious handsome-ass idiot, I’ve been flirting with you for thirteen years—”

He was interrupted by Johnny leaning down to kiss him on the mouth.

Yangyang pretended to gag. Ten made a soft noise of elation and leaned into the kiss, his arms winding around Johnny’s waist.

Renjun clapped his hands twice in false applause, then turned away. “What an eventful night,” he commented dryly, heading back toward his helicopter.

Jeno tore his eyes away from the scene of his idol kissing someone that wasn’t him, and let out a deep sigh.

“Come on, Jaem.” He patted his friend’s shoulder. “Let’s go home.”

###

On the helicopter ride back to the mansion, Jaemin fell asleep against Jeno’s side. He traced small circles on the back of Jaemin’s hand.

Renjun observed the two of them with pursed lips.

“No,” Jeno said, before Renjun could say anything. “He and I did not have a lover’s spat.”

With the help of the enormous intercom headphones everyone in the vehicle was wearing, he knew Renjun could hear his voice through the roar of the helicopter blades. 

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Renjun said. “Although I am curious as to what sort of argument you had with him that led to you dragging me out of my office and demanding that I fly you downtown.”

“Your helicopter was a better choice than the jet,” Jeno said. “I’m glad you thought of it.”

“And I’m glad Jihyo was free tonight. She’s the only one with a valid copter license,” Renjun said, casting a glance at the front seat, where the leader of the nonet squad sat in the cockpit. 

Upon hearing her name, she sent a thumbs-up back at them.

“Thank you,” Jeno said.

“No problem,” Jihyo called.

“No—well, yes, thank _you_ , but I—I meant Renjun.” Jeno cleared his throat. “Like, thank you. For doing all of this.” He gestured around them. “It means a lot to me.”

“I know,” Renjun said easily. “That’s why I did it.”

Jeno sensed there was something else he was implying, some message he was leaving unspoken. Briefly he fantasized it was a declaration of affection: _you mean a lot to me, Jeno, I care about you,_ even though in his stomach was the sinking certainty that he shouldn’t let himself fantasize these things. His feelings were one-sided—he knew that. He shouldn’t let himself expect for more. 

Still, his heart was beating fast, faster, faster, just like the blades of the helicopter. He willed it to stop as he closed his eyes and leaned against Jaemin, wondering not for the first time if maybe Jaemin had been right when he’d said Renjun would ruin him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I’m a Once and yes the first scene in this chapter with the girls is based off the fireplace scene in the MV for The Best Thing I Ever Did. Also I adore Chungha and her outfit here is based off her outfit in her Snapping MV. And this is a gif that inspired me to make Yangyang a racecar driver:  
> 
> 
> I've been working on a Noren College AU one-shot, and I'm planning to post it next week, so that'll push the next chapter of Crimeful to come out in 2 weeks instead of just 1. Oof.
> 
> Please stay safe everyone, wherever you are! Thanks for reading this far <3 pls consider leaving a comment if you have the time.
> 
> ~Yerin 042020


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's chapter 9!! shoutout to everyone who's still keeping up with this fic. we're almost at 100 kudos and im rly excited ^~^ thank you all for your support, my heart is: happy 
> 
> i've said it before but i'll say it again: my beta is so capable and amazing. like? she's too good to be real oml

Taeil could never get used to the sight of his boyfriend coming home with his clothes stained red.

The first time it happened, he panicked and screamed and almost called an ambulance, before Sicheng’s hands were resting on his shoulders and he murmured in that deep voice of his, “It’s okay. I’m okay.”

“Yeah,” Taeil gasped, nodding frenetically. “Yeah. Okay.”

“I use knives, that’s why,” Sicheng said, rubbing his thumbs into Taeil’s shoulders in a soothing gesture. “It gets messy. It’s never my own blood, though.”

“Could you—not?” Taeil wasn’t sure what he was asking for. “Maybe . . . not? With the knives? Please?”

Sicheng bit his lip. His eyes flitted across Taeil’s face. “I can’t stop doing my job. This is my life.”

“But you said that your friend Haechan uses poison. Isn’t that—wouldn’t that be—” Taeil gestured down at Sicheng’s T-shirt, which was splattered with hideous crimson. “Better than _this_? I don’t know. I can’t handle blood. At all.”

“A different killing style doesn’t lessen the repercussions, it just changes them,” Sicheng said. “Haechan’s hair smells like cyanide after every job, Wendy’s handbags have holes from where the heat of her holo-gun nozzle has seared through, and even Joy has been grazed by the shrapnel of her own dynamite too many times to count. It’s all part of the job description.”

“I—I see.”

“No, you don’t have to lie,” Sicheng said, taking his hands off Taeil’s shoulders. “I can tell you don’t understand. And that’s fine. You don’t have to get it. I just hope you can respect me enough not to worry about me every time I go out for a job—don’t give me that look, I _know_ you worry about me—because I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’m good at not dying.”

“How long is a long time?” Taeil managed.

“Oh. . .” Sicheng let out a sigh as he began to wash his hands under the kitchen sink. “A decade, give or take.” He moved to grab a coffee mug and began filling it from the tap. “I know that seems like a long time, but with Haechan it’s worse. He was an assassin before _I_ was. It’ll be his thirteenth anniversary soon.”

Taeil watched his boyfriend drink the water. “I can’t believe we dated for five months before I learned you were a hitman.”

“I can’t believe I managed to keep it from you for five months,” Sicheng agreed. He set the mug down. “I’m relieved I don’t have to hide it anymore, though. And I hope that we . . . can still be a we.”

He said the words quietly. Hopefully. Taeil stared, hit by the realization that Sicheng seemed as nervous about this as he was himself. He was afraid of Taeil walking away. Taeil wondered how many people before him had done that. 

“Yeah,” he said. “We’re still a we.”

Sicheng’s smile was shy, small. His smiles were so few and far between that Taeil felt his heart lift at the sight of one.

“But,” Taeil added, “only if you change out of that shirt right now. God, it’s giving me the creeps.”

“Sure,” Sicheng said, before pulling the shirt off and discarding it in the kitchen sink in an easy, casual motion. Bare-chested in their kitchen, he tilted his head invitingly at him. “Better?”

Taeil’s cheeks were hot. “You—ugh, you flirt.”

“They don’t call me Winwin for nothing,” Sicheng drawled. “My flirting is how I win hearts.”

Bashful, Taeil shuffled his feet. “You’ve won mine.” 

“Oho, who’s the flirt now? Come here, I wanna kiss you.”

Since that first night, Sicheng made an obvious effort to stop coming home looking like a vampire who’d just fed. He wore dark-colored clothes to hide the stains, and always did the laundry right away because he knew the stench of iron made Taeil nauseous. He also made a point of not talking about his work, not unless Taeil brought it up first. All of these small efforts of him trying to be a _normal_ partner for Taeil’s sake made his heart well with affection.

“Do most assassins have partners?” Taeil asked one night at dinner. They were on the couch, eating breaded fish sticks and watching TV. “As in, romantic partners? Or is it uncommon.”

“Hmm,” Sicheng said. He crunched on a fish stick. “It’s uncommon. Seulgi says we should be mindful of accidentally placing our loved ones in danger, but she and Wendy definitely have something going on, so I don’t know about what she says.”

Taeil liked it when Sicheng talked about his coworkers in this easy, light-hearted way. It made it easier for him to imagine them as real people and not just faceless, soulless Bad Guys. 

“But then there’s Haechan,” Sicheng mused. “I feel bad for him.”

“Why?” Taeil knew the younger assassin fairly well by now; he stopped by their apartment often, to say hi or take a quick power nap. 

“He was in love with someone,” Sicheng said. “Someone who died at the beginning of this summer. It didn’t happen because of his connection to Haechan, but still—it takes a lot for people like us to open our hearts, and Haechan did it, but in the end it all went to shit anyway. Poor kid.”

“Yeah. . .” Taeil said, feeling hollow all of the sudden. “That’s . . . yeah.”

Sicheng bit into another fish stick, and offered the second half of it to Taeil, who accepted it. In front of them the TV was babbling some reality show that neither of them were really watching. Sicheng changed the channel and landed on an animal documentary—he made an excited sound at the sight of the otters on the screen, and leaned into Taeil, resting his head on his shoulder. 

When the documentary finished and they were cleaning up, Taeil ventured to ask what had been on his mind.

“How did he die?”

Sicheng lifted a couch cushion to check for crumbs, then placed it back down. “Serial killers,” he said, with no small amount of bitterness. “It’s a shame. He was a med student, too, if I remember right. I tried my best to give him what protection I could, but it still amounted to nothing. God, Haechan was in love with him—I bet he’d do anything to get him back.”

Taeil’s heart felt heavy. That night when they lay down in bed, he hugged Sicheng tighter than usual, and Sicheng asked with a small laugh if there was a reason why he was being so clingy today. All Taeil did was snuggle closer and murmur a soft _yes_.

Sicheng didn’t ask for the reason. He knew it already. They both did.

###

“Um. Renjun.

“Are you . . . there?

“It’s okay if you’re not. I just—was just asking.

“Oh, I think I just heard you move! You’re in there! Could you please open the—”

With a massive sigh, Renjun threw open his office door. It slammed against the wall with the force, creating a loud _bang_. Mark looked startled, standing there with his eyes wide and his hand poised to knock.

“What do you want, Lee.”

Mark put his hand down. “Wow. You . . . are you okay?”

 _No_. Renjun had been sitting at his computer for the past nine hours, poring over Internet forums, clicking on site after site, trying keyword after keyword. At this point he had the feeling he’d seen every website related to the words amnesia and childhood trauma and memory restoration—he’d ventured into the Dark Net, where the shadiest digital hawkers advertised various questionable products to treat his plight: drugs, holo-drugs, synthetic drugs, holo-synthetic drugs, season’s tickets to the Black Market. None of it led Renjun anyplace other than increasing levels of frustration. 

“No offense, but you don’t look so hot,” Mark said. 

“I haven’t slept in three days,” Renjun hissed.

Mark’s eyes went impossibly wider. “Ah. I see.”

Renjun was already reaching for the doorknob to close the door in Mark’s face before he stopped and collected himself. “My apologies. For a moment there, it slipped my mind that you’re no stranger to sleep deprivation yourself.”

“I’m . . . uh, yeah.” Mark scratched the back of his neck. “I guess so.”

“Come in,” Renjun said, gesturing for Mark to enter his office. The older hesitantly padded inside. “Please, take a seat on the couch.”

Mark obliged. He looked awkward sitting there, his hands on his knees, his back ramrod straight as he idly took in the afternoon-lit cityscape that could be seen through the glass wall of the office. It reminded Renjun of the first time that Jeno walked into his office, stammering and sweaty-palmed, eyes wide at the sight of the Los Angeles contempire laid out in front of him. 

Self-consciously Renjun reached over to close his laptop, hiding the evidence of the Dark Net queries he’d been doing for Jeno. He sank into the swivel chair opposite the couch and crossed his legs. 

“What brings you here, Lee?”

Mark tore his eyes away from the city view. “I just had a couple questions.”

“I may have some answers.”

“The doctors you commissioned to examine me this morning. They tried to take an X-ray of me, but it didn’t work.”

Renjun raised an eyebrow. The procedure of an X-ray was an archived one, something that most contemporary scientists didn’t give the time of day, preferring to utilize more modern technology and bypass the risks that came with the use of such crude radiation on a patient’s body. “Was their X-ray machine faulty?”

“No, no, it wasn’t,” Mark said. “It was working fine. But for some reason it wouldn’t work on _me_ —they ran it three different times and no results even showed up. It was like the machine was convinced I didn’t even exist.”

“Odd,” Renjun said, pursing his lips. “Sorry, usually I would be up to date on these developments, but I haven’t had a chance to check my email for today’s test results. I’ve been . . .” He cast a surreptitious glance over at his laptop. “Otherwise occupied.”

“Yeah, I get it, you must be a busy guy,” Mark reasoned. “But I think what the doctors discovered today was, like, a breakthrough. After all the failed X-ray attempts, they took me through this special machine called a mod-detector. They tried to explain to me exactly what it does, but—I don’t know, they used a lot of long words. All I got was the gist of it. Apparently there’s a mod in me.”

The office room was silent enough you could have heard a pin drop.

“A mod,” Renjun repeated. “You’re kidding.”

Mark blinked at him hopefully. “So . . . you know what that word means? Because I don’t, and neither did any of my brothers, when I asked them—”

“That’s because none of _them_ have the socioeconomic status to even be considered a candidate for a mod, much less know what one is.” Renjun pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s an abbreviation. For modification.”

“Modification,” Mark echoed. “That sounds . . . cyborg-y.”

Renjun looked up so fast that Mark scooted back in his seat an inch. Suddenly he said, “Let me see it. I won’t believe you have it until I see it.”

“My—my mod? Look, sorry, the doctors told me it’s embedded in my spinal cord and can’t be removed without killing me.” Mark looked nervous. “You’re not planning on, uh, doing that, are you?”

“Killing you? That’s the farthest thing from my mind. I doubt I could even manage it.” Renjun looked Mark up and down. “Mods are meant to _keep_ their owners from being killed. They’re complex devices infused with self-generating cyber-cells meant to protect your body from external harm. That would explain why Joo Geum used sleep deprivation on you—there wasn’t any other way she could get past the mod protections.

“If she snapped your neck, the most pain you’d feel from it is vague discomfort. If she cut you open, the cyber-cells would knit you back together before it became fatal. Physical torture would have been rendered obsolete.”

Mark’s mouth opened, then shut, as if he were a gaping fish. 

Renjun got up and ran his hand through his hair, beginning to pace around the office. “But that would contradict the way she so quickly disposed of you after your death. Who would throw away a body if you knew it housed such an expensive contraption? It’s likely she didn’t even know about its existence.” He stopped. “Wait, that’s _right_ , Xiao did say that insomnolence was Joo’s specialty. That makes sense. She would have skipped all physical torture and gone straight to the sleep deprivation.”

“So it’s a good thing my serial killer happened to be this particular lady, huh?” Mark laughed weakly. “Or else the mod would have been discovered right away.”

“Yes, indeed. But we should also account for how a mod is incredibly discreet. Makes it appear as if the healing process is just your body’s nature.”

“What? _What?_ How can _that_ pass as natural?”

“I don’t know. I don’t have one. Even I’m only barely rich enough to afford one. There are only a few people in the world who have that sort of money.” He gave Mark a scrutinous glare. “How did you do it? How did you get that money? Did you sell your kidneys? Your firstborn child? The _kidneys_ of your firstborn child? No, please don’t tell me.” He ran his hand through his hair again. “If we ignore the question as to how you even have a mod in the first place, this revelation explains a great variety of things.”

“What kind of things?” Mark said hesitantly.

Renjun didn’t answer. He went over to the microphone sitting on top of his desk and swiftly pressed its intercom option, the one that connected it to all the other speakers in the mansion. “Jeno,” he said, distantly hearing his own voice echoed throughout the many corridors of the building. “Come see me. It’s about your older brother.”

###

Jeno was spending quality time with Bongsik when he heard the announcement. He came as quick as he could. By the time he reached the top of the stairs, he was panting, with Jaemin, Donghyuck, and Chenle in tow. They all quickly filed into Renjun’s office and settled down, curious to know why Renjun had called them up here in the middle of the afternoon—Jeno got the feeling it was something serious, by how Mark’s shoulders were small. It was what he did when he was afraid: shrunk in on himself.

Donghyuck picked it up right away and made a point of sitting right beside him, pressing up with their thighs side-by-side. He slung a protective arm over his shoulder and shot Renjun a scathing look, as if he could tell that Mark was like this because of him. 

“Why are we here?” Chenle wondered. “My legs hurt from the stairs.”

Renjun leaned forward, steepling his fingers. “There’s been a development in my understanding of why Mark is not like the other deadmen.” 

He looked tired in a way that Jeno had never seen him before. What he lacked in height and weight, he usually made up for with a schooled posture and a steady gaze, but today, he just looked—frazzled. Underneath his eyes were dark rings in a concerning shade of black-blue, and his hair looked mussed, as if he’d run his hands through it several times. His gaze was heavy, irritable. _He needs a nap,_ Jeno thought, and made a mental note to ask him what was keeping him up.

He was so busy thinking these thoughts that he missed the majority of the conversation that was passing between Renjun and the rest of the boys. Jeno tuned back just in time to hear Chenle shriek:

“What do you mean, Mark’s _immortal_?”

“Not quite,” Renjun said. “It’s the mod. The contemporary, technological, semantic Holy Grail.” Judging by his tone, it was clear he had been trying to explain this for a while by now. “Mark is impervious to most types of physical danger, including radiation, which explains why the X-ray machine didn’t work on him—his body repelled it. Based on my knowledge of Operation Phoenix, the way the deadmen are produced is a method that relies heavily on the application of radiation upon the desired corpse.”

“I . . . what? I don’t get it,” Chenle said.

“You have a dead guy, you apply some radiation lasers or whatnot, and then the dead body becomes an undead body,” Jaemin supplied helpfully. “That part makes sense. What _doesn’t_ make sense is why it would work on Mark if the mod deflects radiation from hitting him.”

“Yeah,” Mark spoke up. “How was I resurrected, if radiation can’t reach me?”

“No, no, that’s another misconception,” Renjun said. “There’s two subgroups of radiation that were engineered for Operation Phoenix: the rays that bring the body back to life, and then the rays that bring the _brain_ back to life. The government tampers with the brain-related rays just enough to render the deadman a walking, violent-prone corpse. The textbook zombie.”

Mark shivered. Donghyuck’s arm tightened around him. Jeno looked at them fondly—he knew Donghyuck didn’t like it when people talked about the deadmen, not because he himself was afraid of them, but because Mark was. Donghyuck had always hated when Mark was scared.

“Oh my gosh, wait,” Jaemin said. “I think I get it. The mod protects its owner from bodily harm. It perceives radiation as harmful, which explains why it rejects X-rays. But when the government was jacking up Mark’s dead body with radiation, the mod must have realized—”

“—that the radiation rays would be beneficial for Mark’s survival,” Renjun said, nodding his head. “It would have _selectively_ accepted the rays that restored Mark’s body and mind. Meaning, it would reject the rays that tampered with his sanity.”

Jaemin leaned back, his jaw hanging. “And that’s why Mark has none of the typical deadmen drooling animalistic traits.”

“He still drools around Donghyuck,” Chenle muttered. Donghyuck elbowed him so hard that he released a dolphin-like shriek.

“Hold on. That stuff about the mod. Can it—can it _do_ that?” Mark asked, looking slightly petrified. “Just how sentient is it, exactly?”

Chenle reached over and moved Donghyuck’s arm off of Mark’s shoulders so that he could get a better look at Mark’s neck. “Is it, like, embedded in there? Is it microscopic? God, that’s so cool.”

“It’s fairly sentient,” Renjun said, looking thoughtful. “But in a far more advanced fashion than commonplace sentient machines, such as self-automated cars.”

Jeno didn’t miss the pointed look that Renjun sent Jaemin, who spluttered, “Wait, are you talking about my car? My BloodTwin is a _masterpiece_ , she’s the opposite of commonplace, I can’t believe you’d lump her into a group of cars as if she were any old _taxi_ —”

“Your car has a refined digital brain, yes,” Renjun cut him off. “But Mark’s mod? It has your car’s brainpower raised to the eleventh power.”

“That’s _awesome_ ,” Chenle gushed, bouncing up and down on the couch. “Mark, do you, like, hear a voice in your head? Like, does the mod talk to you?”

Mark looked slightly faint. “No. It’s—it’s like I can’t even feel it.”

“I don’t know how you even got it in the first place,” Jeno said. “None of us even knew about it until today.”

Suddenly Donghyuck rocketed to his feet. “ _Winwin_ ,” he gasped.

Everyone turned to look at him, startled by his outburst when for the majority of the conversation he had been keeping quiet—too quiet, Jeno realized belatedly.

“It was Winwin, I swear to God,” Donghyuck said, his eyes wide with a fervent emotion that Jeno couldn’t place. He turned and made a beeline for the door. “I have to go see him. Right now. Mark, we have to go see him.”

“Who—?” Mark began, getting to his feet.

“No, you will not be taking Mark anywhere,” Renjun interjected with a harsh voice. “It’s of utmost importance that he stays indoors, safe from prying eyes—”

“Winwin’s my coworker. Assassins know how to keep secrets,” snapped Donghyuck. “And anyway, he’s the only reason why Mark’s still alive right now.”

“ _He_ bought Mark the mod?” wondered Jaemin.

Donghyuck was already pulling Mark out the door with him. In a matter of moments, the two were gone.

The silence in the room without them was stifling. Chenle broke it by turning to Jaemin with a starry-eyed look.

“Jaem,” he said, “my brother is _immortal._ ”

“Invincible,” Jaemin corrected, although he looked equal parts dazed.

Renjun released an enormous sigh and leaned back into his swivel chair, rubbing the side of his face. “If anyone out there sees those two out and about, I’m going to have a stroke,” he muttered, quite audibly.

Jeno’s eyes traced the slump of his shoulders, the fatigue etched into his cheeks. He had to do something. “Nana, Lele, I think we’re done here. You’re free to go.”

“Sure.” Chenle hopped to his feet and practically skipped his way out the door. “I have to tell Jisung about this. Oh my God, this is so fucking _lit_.”

Before Jaemin left, he cast his best friend a probing look. Jeno shooed him away faster, waiting until he heard his footsteps padding down the stairs before he turned to his boss with a furrowed brow. 

“Jeno.” Renjun’s head was in his hands. “I can _hear_ you hovering. I’m fine.”

“Uh, sorry, but you don’t look fine.”

He opened his eyes long enough to give Jeno a withering look. “That’s what your brother said too.”

“We share the same brain cell, it makes sense. Are you—do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

“Are you offering to be my therapist?” Renjun said. “Therapists are expensive. I don’t intend on functioning that kind of raise into your salary.”

“I’m not looking for a raise,” Jeno said, with an exasperated smile. “Can’t a guy just want to help out?”

“There’s nothing you can do.” Renjun made a dismissive gesture over at the laptop sitting on his desk. “I’ve been researching amnesia. I’ve used up nearly half of my Dark Net membership bonuses and information coupons—and I still can’t find an answer.”

“Oh. Well, that’s very kind of you to do, but we’re actually all starting to accept Mark’s memory loss as something that can’t be fixed, so—”

“Jeno.” Renjun looked more tired than ever. “I’m not doing it for Mark.”

Jeno’s mouth dried up. “. . . Oh?”

“Xiao would be disgusted with me,” Renjun mumbled, reaching up to click his pendant open and shut. “I’m becoming _soft_ . I can’t believe it. It’s downright ridiculous.” He slumped down so far in his swivel chair that he was only halfway sitting in it, his head against the chair’s back, his legs stretched out in front of him. “This is against the handbook. I’m not supposed to be—be _kind_.”

Jeno started toward him, if to do nothing more than pull him back upright. Renjun sensed his footsteps and straightened up, getting out of the chair so forcefully it rolled away behind him.

“No, no. Don’t come near. Physical contact is against the handbook too.”

“That never seemed to stop you before,” Jeno pointed out, and was inwardly fascinated by the way Renjun’s cheeks flushed ever so slightly. “Anyway, to hell with the handbook. You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

The concern in Jeno’s gut grew stronger as, coming closer, he could see just how utterly worn-out Renjun looked.

“I don’t want my memories back so much that you tear yourself up over finding a way to retrieve them,” he added.

At that, Renjun scoffed. “Don’t flatter yourself.”

“How should I take this, then? Unless there’s someone _else_ you’re doing it for.” A pause. “Is there?”

An eye roll. “What do you think?”

“Stop answering my questions with questions.”

“Don’t give me orders.”

“Don’t give _me_ orders.”

“I am your employer, I will tell you what to do if I see fit—”

“I am your _friend_ ,” Jeno said, with equal bite. “And I want to help you as I see fit.”

Renjun’s nostrils flared. Jeno steadily returned his glare.

“Fine,” the boss said, taking a step closer. Jeno involuntarily took a step back. “You want to know what’s going on with me? I don’t even know. I’m a workaholic who’s spent my whole life living a routine of money and work and payloads and all for _myself_ . I do it all for my own benefit and I’ve never had a single problem with it and this is just the default way my life has always been.” He advanced on Jeno, causing the blond male to back up rapidly. “But something’s changed. I’m not living that default anymore—there’s something driving me to do all this _kind_ shit and I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.”

Jeno’s back hit the wall. By now he was nearly cornered.

“You’re not making sense,” he rasped.

Renjun glowered. “If any of this made sense, I wouldn’t be so worked up over it, would I?”

The silence between them that followed was strained. Jeno counted the seconds, ticking by on the holo-clock in the corner of the room, and when a deal of time had passed without the tension dissipating, Jeno reached out.

Renjun’s eyes tracked the movement—Jeno wavered, almost put his hand back down, then steeled himself and placed his hand on top of the other male’s shoulder. 

“Let me get this straight,” he said. “You’re having an identity crisis.”

Renjun raised an eyebrow. “Wow, so you’re actually being my therapist.”

“You’re feeling emotions. Right? For the first time since you’ve been a mafia boss you’re remembering what it’s like to feel emotions, and that’s what you don’t like?”

A huffed chuckle. “How did you gather _that_ from what I said?”

“Renjun,” Jeno said, squeezing his shoulder in a silent demand. “Tell me. Do you . . . are you doing all of this because you care? About . . . me?”

Renjun’s mouth stayed stubbornly shut, his glare hot. All at once Jeno grew aware of the proximity between the two of them—they were so, so close, faces inches apart, their breath mingling in the same space, body heat radiating off of both of them.

Jeno’s words were a whisper. “Do you?”

“You’re the one who just said we were friends,” Renjun replied, his voice equally low. “Are you really asking me that question?”

But it wasn’t the same. Jeno had called them friends, but this—the look in Renjun’s eyes as he gazed at Jeno, the undeniable sea of emotion crackling thick and hot and deep in the air between the two of them . . . this was different.

His vision flickered. _Fingers laced together, cold sunshine, tangled legs, grief grief grief._ Jeno stumbled at the unprecedented _pain_ in the memories. _Blunt fingernails, sweat, a face wet with tears._

Now it was Renjun’s turn to take his shoulders. “Jeno?”

“Sorry,” Jeno managed. “I—flashbacks. So many.” The scene was changing. _Forehead pressed to forehead, white picket fences, dirt-stained knees, fierce whispered promises._

It changed again. _Acid rain, a hole-eaten umbrella, cold feet and cold hands, a call with no answer._

The scene shifted, shifted once more. He whimpered and sank to the ground, pressed his knuckles into his eyes, tried to wrench himself out of the onslaught.

“No, no, let them come,” Renjun said, kneeling beside him. His hands tugged Jeno’s wrists down and cupped his neck, thumbs resting on his jaw. “Tell me what you see.”

Jeno squeezed his eyes shut, gasping. “Now it’s flowers. I see flowers.”

“What else?”

“They’re purple. They’re . . . _lilies_. There’s wind chimes—fuck, there’s a columbarium, a niche, I’m putting the flowers in the niche, someone’s sobbing, I think it’s me, I think I’m the one sobbing—”

“Do you see any names? Faces?”

Jeno paused, straining to see if he could find the answer to the questions, but the vision was blurring before his eyes. It was agony. He ached all over. “No. I’m— _ahh_ , it hurts.”

“What hurts?”

Jeno whimpered. Mourning was a mountain crashing down on him. His chest felt tight, hollow. “My heart. It hurts. Really really bad.”

“Okay, that’s enough.” Renjun’s arms slipped around him.

It was an unexpected, warm hug, presumably to keep Jeno from shaking. He hadn’t even realized he was trembling. Terrified, he buried his face in Renjun’s shoulder, blinking back tears. Renjun’s arms tightened around him.

“Breathe with me,” he murmured softly.

_Breathe. Breathe._

With effort, Jeno synced his inhalations and exhalations to match how Renjun was guiding him.

It took time, but eventually, Jeno’s pulse slowed. 

“There you go,” Renjun said. “See? Better, right?”

“I . . . I think I lost someone.” Jeno shuddered and pressed his face into Renjun’s neck, wanting to hide there. “Someone I cared about.”

“You mean Mark?”

“Not Mark. Someone . . . someone else.” 

“That’s what the memories are about?”

Jeno nodded, just barely. He couldn’t find it in himself to explain more. It all felt too raw, untouchable, unbreachable. He doubted he could even explain it to himself.

Renjun held him, not pressing for more. Jeno steadied his breathing even further, focusing on making it regular. He waited until all his vitals had returned back to normal before he slowly, reluctantly extracted himself from Renjun’s grasp. 

“I . . . I’m sorry.” 

Renjun’s hands stayed on waist. “Why?”

 _For freaking out on you. For trying to worm a confession out of you._ “For being the reason why you look so tired today.”

“Yes, well.”

“I really do appreciate all of the research, though. What exactly were you looking for?”

“Ways to restore memory loss.” Renjun leaned back and climbed to his feet, putting a decent amount of space between them again. “Your options are: crude drugs, cruder drugs, or drugs masquerading under ridiculous prices to make them seem like they aren’t just the crudest of the lot.”

Jeno got up too and cracked a small smile. “That bad, huh?”

“That bad.” Renjun yawned, not bothering to cover his mouth with his hand.

“Hey, I wasn’t kidding when I said you should get some sleep,” Jeno said.

An eyebrow quirk. “It’s three in the afternoon.”

“So? You can take a nap.”

“If I go to sleep, I won’t wake up until next week.”

“That sounds like exactly what you need.”

Renjun shook his head. “No, I can’t,” he said. “I have meetings. Lee Taeyong wants to convene another summit to discuss the deadmen situation, I’ve got benefactors in France asking for loans, _again_ , and I still haven’t interrogated Jung Yoonoh on how to operate that color nerf gun invention of his.”

“The color gun is my business anyway,” soothed Jeno. “And I can handle all the rest of that work for you.”

“You’d be stretching your roles as secretary.”

“Am I even still your secretary? I’m practically your therapist,” Jeno said, ignoring the baleful look Renjun sent his way. “Now go lie down. No, you can’t lie down on the couch here, you have to go to your actual bedroom and sleep there. I know you have a bedroom on the two hundred fifty-first floor and you just don’t use it.”

“My office’s couch is plenty comfortable, that’s why,” Renjun sniffed, but he let Jeno lead him to the door. “Hey—what do you say to becoming more than a secretary?”

Jeno held the door open. “Are you offering me a raise for real?” 

“Well, yes, it would come with a raise, but it’s a promotion of duties at its basis. You’d be my right-hand. Take on work items that would normally fall to me.”

“Yeah, but here I am, already offering to do all that stuff,” Jeno said.

“Then I’ll draw up the contract for you sometime soon, and we can make it official.” Renjun left the room, then paused and turned back. “Beware, though—lieutenants are required by their post to carry out field work. I would recommend strengthening your skills with that color nerf gun we purchased from Chungha.”

“Okay. I will,” Jeno said. 

He really did hope Renjun could get some sleep. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the question he’d asked, the one Renjun had never answered.

_Do you care about me?_

###

Mark was bundled up in an enormous parka, a floppy black bucket hat, and a disposable face mask with its loop holes pulling at the backs of his ears. The whole outfit screamed _hasty disguise for impromptu escapade_.

“Did you really think this through?” he whispered to Donghyuck. “Because I don’t think you did.”

They were huddling in the back seat of a taxi, Donghyuck straining to stretch his arms into the corners of the ceiling as a means of obscuring the lenses of the taxi’s security cameras. 

“Shut up,” Donghyuck hissed, obviously sweating, his arms trembling from the effort of being held aloft. “The cabcams probably have voice recognition.”

Mark pitched his voice as low as possible. It came out gravelly. “Who’s this Winwin we’re going to see?”

There was a long beat of silence. Then—

“Hold on. Hold on, Mark Lee, holy shit. Did you just _growl_ at me?”

Startled, Mark peeked up from under the brim of his hat. Donghyuck was staring straight at him.

“You said they have voice recognition,” Mark said, still using the gravelly voice. “I . . . I’m just lowering my tone, so I’m harder to recognize—”

“Holy shit,” Donghyuck repeated reverently. “That’s the hottest thing I’ve heard all week. Please talk like that for the rest of your life.”

Mark felt his cheeks burn hot. “ _H-Hyuck_. Answer my question.”

“Yeah, okay, fine, we’re going to see my friend Sicheng.” Donghyuck kicked the backside of the taxi’s driver seat, despite there not being a person there. “Oi! Car! Hurry up a little, would you?”

The car whirred in distaste and flashed a warning message on the mini-screen of its wheel to stop damaging the vehicle. A second later, though, it obediently put on a bit of extra speed.

Almost unconsciously, Mark reached up to rub the back of his neck, where the mod must have been. Renjun had said it was far more refined than any commonplace car. Mark couldn’t wrap his head around that—he was _still_ amazed by the fact that there were self-driving cars in the first place, much less semi-sentient human body modifications.

“I thought we were going to see Winwin?”

“Same thing. Sicheng’s just his civilian name, like me and Haechan.” Donghyuck’s eyes followed the passing scenery through the car window. “We’re getting closer. He lives in this absolutely tiny-ass apartment that he could definitely do better than, and I’ve been telling him to just buy a house and settle down with that blond boyfriend of his, but—”

“Is Sicheng the reason why I’m alive right now?”

“What?”

“That’s what you said. Back in the office. That without Winwin, I wouldn’t be here.”

Donghyuck’s eyes stayed out the window. “If the answer is yes, it would explain why he hasn’t bought a bigger place by now.”

For some reason, his words made Mark feel queasy.

A couple minutes later, when the taxi pulled up at the curb and beeped for them to get out, Donghyuck took his hands off the cabcams and quickly pushed Mark out of the car. Casting furtive glances all around to make sure no one was in sight, he herded Mark down the sidewalk. Mark shuffled along and kept his head low, trusting the other boy to guide him.

The winter air lost its edge as they entered the warm interior of the apartment complex. Mark itched to pull off his suffocating parka. “Are we there yet?”

“Getting into the elevator,” Donghyuck grunted, his hands on Mark’s shoulders to steer him. “Watch your feet, there’s a threshold.”

Mark tripped anyway. But before he could crash face-first into the ground, Donghyuck’s arms slipped around his waist from behind and held him in a tight grip, keeping their bodies flush against each other. Mark’s mind went blank. Donghyuck waddled forward, bringing them into the safety of the elevator box. There was a _ding_ as the doors slid shut.

“Fourth floor, please,” Donghyuck said. 

The elevator started upward. 

After a couple moments of them standing in silence, Mark cleared his throat. “Hyuck.” He patted Donghyuck’s arms, still hugging his waist. “You—you can let go now.”

“Uh . . . nah.” Donghyuck rested his chin on Mark’s shoulder. “You’re so warm.”

“I’m burning up,” Mark complained. “I feel hot all over. And it’s all because of this fluffy jacket.”

“Is it? Is it really?”

Mark faltered at his sultry tone. “H—Hey.”

“Fine, okay, you don’t have to answer that,” Donghyuck said, and as the elevator doors pulled open he retracted his arms. “Look, we’re here.”

Pulling off the parka and desperately willing his body temperature to return to normal, Mark followed as Donghyuck led the way down the hall and toward one of the apartment doors. In one swift motion, Donghyuck kicked his foot under the doormat, used the toe of his boot to drag out the gleaming house key hidden underneath it, and kicked it upward into his palm. 

He noticed Mark staring and gave him a roguish wink. “Don’t worry. It’s not breaking and entering if it’s your friend’s place.”

“I don’t know if that’s how it works,” Mark began, but then Donghyuck was inserting the key. It came with a _click_ and then out of the door handle popped a hologram keypad. Donghyuck punched in a rapid series of numbers. A moment of computation passed before the keypad lit up in approval and the door swung open of its own accord, the hologram disappearing back into the door handle.

“Why have both a key and a passcode?” Mark wondered.

“Security measures,” Donghyuck said, and pushed into the apartment.

“Wait, Hyuck, maybe we should _knock_ —”

Donghyuck had already gone inside. Mark shook his head, then followed, shutting the door behind him.

The one-room apartment that greeted him really was quite small. It only had enough space for a couch, a TV, and a half-kitchen. On the counter sat loose-leaf papers, mismatched coffee mugs stacked on top of each other, and a half-eaten bowl of macaroni and cheese with a fork still sticking out of it.

“Anybody home?” Donghyuck called.

A man with straw-blond hair looked up from the couch. He looked to be in the middle of sorting socks. “Oh, hi, Haechan.”

“Hi Taeil. Where’s Sicheng?”

“In the bathroom,” Taeil replied. “Who’s your friend?”

“He’s my—” Donghyuck coughed. “He’s my Mark.”

When Mark realized Donghyuck had been about to say boyfriend, he became immensely glad for the mask covering his blushing face. “Hi. Yeah. I’m Mark.”

“Oh, cool.” Taeil went back to folding laundry.

Then all of a sudden, his head whipped up and he set down the pair of socks. “Wait.” He squinted at the two of them, looking severely troubled. “Wait just a second there.”

“How much has Sicheng told you?” Donghyuck asked Taeil, before the bathroom door abruptly slammed open. “Oh, there you are.”

“Did I just hear you say Mark’s name?” It was a tall, dark-haired man, standing in the bathroom doorway, his eyes wide. “Oh my God, Donghyuck, I remember when you wouldn’t even say his _name_ , this is a good step in the healing process—wait. Who . . . ?”

He was staring at Mark. 

Mark took off his hat, fluffed his hair to rid himself of hat hair, and pulled off his mask. “Hi, I’m—”

He didn’t even see Sicheng move. All he knew was that all of the sudden, there was a _thud_ and then a quivering knife buried itself in the door right next to his head.

Mark’s stomach dropped. 

“Sicheng, what the _hell_?” Donghyuck shouted. He moved to stand in front of Mark. “Put those away!”

Sicheng shook his head. In each of his brandished fists were two more knives, gleaming and with odd serrated edges—Mark hadn’t even seen him take them out. “Who the fuck. Is that. _Who the fuck is that?_ ”

Donghyuck reached backward and pulled the knife out of the door with a loud scraping noise. “Cut it out,” he growled. “Put your fucking weapons away.”

Taeil stood up from the couch. “I second that.”

Sicheng gave him a hard look. “Stay out of this.”

“Babe. You just put a hole in our front door, I think I have a right to get involved—”

Donghyuck threw the knife onto the floor at Sicheng’s feet. “I said put your weapons _away_.”

Sicheng trapped the skidding knife underneath his slipper and glared at him. It became a bit of a staring war, until finally he relented, unceremoniously slipping the knives into the sheaths that hung off his belt loops.

With the action, the tension drained out of the room. 

Donghyuck turned to Mark, eyes serious in a way they rarely were. “Are you okay?”

“Y—yeah,” Mark croaked.

“I want answers,” Sicheng spoke up. 

“And you’ll get them,” Donghyuck said, turning away from Mark.

They all sat down on the couch, Taeil hurriedly moving some of the unfolded laundry out of the way to make room. Mark sat as close as he could to Donghyuck, all but clinging to him—the close contact helped to ease the adrenaline still pumping through his body from the lingering mental image of the knife embedded in the door just inches away from his head. 

He became aware of Donghyuck explaining the situation to Taeil and Sicheng: the basic rundown of Operation Phoenix, Mark’s unlikely resurrection, and the mod that had been the cause of it. The whole while, Donghyuck’s hand stayed on Mark’s knee, a quiet gesture of support. He was grateful for it.

“Show me your wrist,” Sicheng said suddenly.

Donghyuck blinked and cut himself off. “’Kay,” he said, holding out his arm and pulling back his sleeve.

“No, not you. You,” Sicheng clarified, eyes on Mark.

Mark obediently stuck out his wrist. Sicheng inhaled sharply at the sight of the two letters tattooed there on his skin: _L.A._

“So it really is you,” Sicheng breathed.

“Well, yeah. Did you think I was lying?” Donghyuck said. 

“Yes, well, I can see that now,” Sicheng said, leaning back into the couch with an enormous sigh. “This is batshit crazy.”

“So . . . you’re the one that bought the mod, right,” Donghyuck said, in less of a question than a statement. “I never knew he had it in the first place.”

Sicheng pursed his lips. “Yeah, it was me. I guess it was worth it, huh?”

Mark nodded. Donghyuck nodded. Even Taeil nodded. 

“But just as a side note,” Mark spoke up, “you have to keep quiet about this all. Like, if word got out that Operation Phoenix brought me back to life . . . I don’t think the public is ready for that. And also, Renjun would kill us.”

“I’ll keep quiet,” Sicheng promised. “Wouldn’t want the mafia boss killing you when you’ve just made your dramatic return back to the living, would you?”

Mark laughed, a weak sound. Silence stretched between all of them.

Taeil stood up. “I’ll make you guys dinner.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Mark said, at the same time that Donghyuck exclaimed, “Aww, hell yes.”

“Hyuck, no, we’ve already imposed enough.”

“I like free food! I’ll take free food.”

“He’s a glutton, I’m sorry,” Mark said to the older men. “We’ll head out. Sorry for inconveniencing you two.”

He and Donghyuck were in the middle of putting their shoes back on when Sicheng called, “Hold on, Mark, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Mark set his sneaker back down and went over to where the older man was beckoning. “Yeah?”

Sicheng pulled him aside, into a corner of the kitchen.

“Do you really have amnesia?”

“Yes,” Mark said, unsure of why he was asking this. “Why?”

Sicheng’s dark inquisitive eyes flickered over Mark’s face, as if assessing his answer.

After a couple moments, he nodded. “Okay, I believe you.”

“. . . Why wouldn’t you?”

“This is going to sound odd, but it’s because you . . . you act the same as before. You act the same around—” Sicheng nodded over at Donghyuck, who was waiting at the door. 

“What do you mean?” 

“You’re so casually tactile with him. Call him Hyuck. You even still look at him like he hung the sun in the sky,” Sicheng said. “It’s unsettling. I almost feel like nothing’s changed.”

Mark’s eyes widened. “Oh. Wow.” A little shaken, he filed the information away for him to think about sometime later. “Anyway, look, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you too. I don’t know much about finances, but I do know that it probably wasn’t polite of me to rob you of all your money.”

Sicheng looked amused. “When did you rob me of all my money?”

“When you bought me the mod.”

“That was out of the kindness of my heart.”

“Well,” Mark said, making a helpless gesture. “Yes. Thank you, but I still feel bad. Donghyuck said you were saving up to move out of your apartment, but you probably weren’t able to do that after you spent money on the mod . . .”

“Please,” Sicheng said. “Stop. Yes, it was expensive, but it wasn’t unaffordable, not after I’d just gotten my pay haul for assassinating all eight crown princesses of New Saudi Arabia. Yes, there were eight. Don’t ask. The mod _was_ sort of a reckless buy, but it saved your life.”

“Well . . .” Mark tried to find a rebuttal but gave up. “Okay, yeah, you’re right. I just . . . I don’t know.”

Sicheng tilted his head at him. “You made that same argument back when I first got you outfitted for the mod. Do you really not remember?”

Mark shook his head. “It’s good to know my past self and I are on the same wavelength, though.”

“Yeah, and it’s a good thing I made the decision in the first place. Although it’s not like I could have foreseen you’d be attacked by serial killers.” Sicheng wrinkled his nose. “Well, anyway, Taeil and I have no problem with living in this place. So don’t be too worried about us, yeah?”

“What’s taking you so long,” whined Donghyuck from behind them. “Sicheng, release him from your clutches, I just remembered that I have to talk to you too.”

“We’re wrapping up,” Sicheng called. He gave Mark an apologetic grimace. “He’s probably going to lecture me for hurling a knife at you. Sorry about that, by the way. I was just startled. It’s not every day that a would-be dead person shows up at your front door.”

“I know,” Mark mumbled. 

That seemed to be all. Sicheng waved him off, and Donghyuck stepped up to have his turn of talking to the older assassin. 

###

Donghyuck stood in front of Sicheng, took a deep breath, and looked the older assassin square in the eye. 

“I just wanted to say—” He had a lump in his throat all of the sudden. “I . . . what you did . . .”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Sicheng said, looking alarmed. “You look like you’re about to cry.”

“I’m—I wanted to say thank you,” Donghyuck choked out. 

“For what?”

“You _know_ what. For saving Mark’s life.”

“Well, he’s your everything,” Sicheng said. “And you’re my friend. I did it for you, not him.” 

Donghyuck knew what he meant. 

“Still, thank you for bringing him back to me.”

Sicheng’s gaze was soft. “You’re welcome, Fullsun.”

###

_Donghyuck’s first kill had been a big one. A member of the president’s cabinet._

_He’d tampered with her drink, swapping her water bottle out for the spiked one that he’d curated himself, and then he watched from the sidelines as she drank it. It was the middle of her speech in Congress when she keeled over. Donghyuck had been more afraid of the shouting and clamor and fearsome television broadcasters trying to get a shot of the fallen politician than he’d been afraid of what he’d done._

_That night in bed, he’d had nightmares. In one of them, a cameraman shoved a mic in his face and asked, “Why’d you do it?”_

To pay my guild dues _didn’t seem like a great answer, even if it was the truth. Donghyuck woke up in a cold sweat and spent the rest of the night wandering around the guild headquarters. This insomnia perpetuated for years, making his wanderings a regular habit._

_One night, when he was eleven years old, he came face-to-face with another assassin. A new recruit._

_“Hey,” Donghyuck said, with a curt nod, walking past._

_The older boy’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist. “Hey. Haechan, right? I’m Winwin.”_

_“Uh . . .” Donghyuck blinked down at the hand on his wrist. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had physical contact with someone other than to choke his latest mark to death after the poison hadn't taken action fast enough. “Okay.”_

_“Wanna go grab something to eat?” the older offered. “You look like you could use it. Food can make the insomnia go away.”_

_Donghyuck hesitated. “Fine, but only if you pay.”_

_“Of course.”_

_And it was that easy._

_The two grew closer over time, especially when they were given duo assignments in which they’d work together. Their late-night runs for food became a regular occurrence. And even though Donghyuck’s insomnia never did go away, it was nice to have some semblance of a friend in the guild, someone whom he knew would have his back._

###

Jisung woke up at the crack of dawn to Chenle bounding into his room, shrieking like a hyper dolphin. He threw himself onto Jisung’s bed and jumped about, messing up the blankets, grabbing Jisung’s spare pillow and hugging it to his chest.

“It’s my birthday it’s my birthday it’s my birthday!” he yelled.

“Mghnmm,” Jisung said in response, reaching to pull the blankets back over his head. He’d stayed up late last night with Jeno at the shooting range, introducing him to a basic gun, and, after that, a sniper rifle. Jeno had not been a particularly fast learner, but what he lacked in talent he made up for with determination, and by the end of the night he’d been able to shoot with more accuracy and spirit than before. 

“What do you mean by spirit?” Jeno had asked. 

“You know,” Jisung had said, although it was clear from Jeno’s face that Jeno did not indeed know. “It’s like . . . uh, it’s just the feeling. When you have a gun, and you narrow your eyes at the target and you feel the rightness of the shot settle over you—okay, if you don’t get it, it doesn’t matter.”

“It seems like you have a way with guns. Do you go out in the field often?”

“The boss doesn’t let me.”

“Why’s that?”

A million answers, all including various forms of self-deprecation and Not Being Good enough, crossed Jisung’s mind before he settled on the easiest one: “I don’t know.”

“Oh,” Jeno had said. A pause. “By the way, he’s promoting me to lieutenant.”

Jisung had almost choked. “He’s _what_?”

But once he had gotten over his initial shock, it was easy for him to see Jeno’s appeal in such a higher-up position. He was reliable, good at keeping his cool, and had an unprecedented knack for getting along with Renjun. Above all, he had the grit, which was arguably the most important part. And Jisung was impressed with him for progressing so far from the shy, nervous guy he’d met on the mansion’s doorstep so long ago—but in the pit of Jisung’s stomach was the small, ugly opinion that Jeno didn’t deserve to be Renjun’s lieutenant.

No one did. No one but Jisung. Sure, it had to do with how he was more qualified—he’d been _born_ into the mafia, had come from a family of the greatest sharpshooters on this side of the Pacific, and knew the ins and outs of the criminal world like the back of his hand. 

But there was a bigger, underlying sentiment for why he was so upset about Jeno becoming lieutenant. Something that Jisung just couldn’t put his finger on.

In the end, all he did was congratulate Jeno for the promotion, and then he’d slunk upstairs to his room, hoping to get a good night’s worth of sleep.

Judging by how utterly cotton-brained he felt right now upon waking up, it was apparent that he hadn’t gotten enough rest. Or maybe the cotton-brainedness was due to Chenle, who had calmed down enough from his birthday-induced excitement to lie on his side next to Jisung. God, he looked so cute, with those big eyes of his, his arms hugging the pillow, his cheek pressed against the blankets . . . 

“Did I wake you?”

“Huh? Me? No,” Jisung said. 

“Liar,” Chenle said, poking him in the ribs and inciting a yelp. “I know I interrupted your beauty sleep. I was just so excited. I’m seventeen today, can you believe it? I’m practically your grandfather!”

“You’re only three months older than me.” 

“And what about it?” Chenle sat up, gave the pillow one last squeeze, then set it back down onto the bed. “Today’s Saturday, let’s make the most of it. I love it when my birthday’s on a weekend. Where should we go? What should we do? There’s so much good food to eat but not enough time to _eat_ it.”

“We still need to finish on our bio presentations due Monday,” Jisung mumbled, in a dull realization.

Chenle gave him the stink eye. “You fucking _monster,_ you can’t bring up the S-word on a birthday.”

“You curse all the time though?”

“No, no, not that S-word.” Chenle leaned in conspiratorially. “ _School_. That’s the word.”

“Well, alright, if you say so.” Jisung sat up, yawning, before belatedly realizing that his hair must look like a bird’s nest. His hands flew up to try and pat it down. “Ugh, sorry, I always get bad bedheads in the mornings.”

Chenle took his wrists and pried his hands away. “I like it,” he said earnestly. “I like your messy hair. It’s cute.”

 _Don’t blush don’t blush_ , Jisung screamed internally. “I’m not cute, I’m _buff_.”

“Well yes, but you’re wearing pink plaid pajamas right now, so . . .”

“There’s nothing wrong with pink! Or plaid! I just don’t like wearing those nasty black turtleneck uniforms all the time, that’s why.”

Chenle paused. “Wait, you have one of those?”

“Yeah but it’s like, itchy. And all I ever do these days is watch the front door, so it’s not like I _need_ to be in uniform.”

Chenle was quiet. Quiet was a rarity when it came to the boy whose only two settings were loud and louder. Then, he spoke up, voice almost shy, “Have you gotten me a birthday present yet?”

Jisung winced. The answer was not quite a yes and not quite a no—he knew Chenle liked chocolates, so he’d considered buying him the truffles shop downtown, but when he’d run the idea by Yangyang the older male had shut him down immediately under claims of it being too much. (“The entire shop, Jisung? No! That's overkill!”) Jisung didn’t really understand what he meant, especially when nothing in this world could ever be _enough_ to express his feelings toward Chenle. 

“If you haven’t gotten anything yet,” Chenle said, after a moment of Jisung’s silence, “I have a request.”

 _Anything_ , Jisung wanted to say _,_ but he held his tongue just in time in case that also might be too much. “Yeah, what is it?”

“Wear the uniform today for me?” Chenle looked hopeful. “Wear it the whole day.”

“What? Why?”

“Because it’s—because I said so.”

“Well,” Jisung said, not sure how he could argue against _that_ , “okay then.”

Chenle beamed and climbed off the bed. “Okay, great. Get changed and I’ll wait for you outside—be snappy about it, too, because there’s not a minute to lose. Today Jaemin’s giving me unlimited use with his credit card and I wanna go and try all of the shaved ice downtown.”

“Shaved ice? In November?”

“Shaved ice in November,” Chenle agreed, and swept out the door, leaving Jisung alone in his bedroom. 

Jisung eyed his closet in the corner of the room, wondering when he’d even last opened it, much less worn something inside of it. Most of his life, the nonet sisters had been trying hard to get him to wear something other than the same pajama sets and monotonous school uniforms that he kept stored in a careless disarray on top of his desk—but he was lazy, and he’d never seen a need to dress up when fashion didn’t matter in the long run.

“Well, if Chenle wants it,” sighed Jisung, getting out of bed to grab his vantablack mafia outfit from the closet.

### 

_The year Jisung turned thirteen years old was Initiation Year, or so he dubbed it._

_All his life leading up to it, he had been patiently training and waiting, waiting and training. Getting good with guns. Getting so good with guns that he could shoot one out the moving window of Yangyang’s racecar. By the time Jisung was thirteen, he was better than Dejun and even Jeongyeon at shooting._

_Initiation Year meant being able to accompany the boss out on missions. To celebrate Jisung’s birthday, Renjun took him out on a robbery spree, where they went around the contempire and robbed all of the biggest banks in town. Jisung had a ton of fun. He liked to think Renjun did, too_ — _after all, the boss was only seventeen at that point, and he was not yet above having petty thrills._

_When they were heading back to the mansion that night, Jisung asked, “Why thirteen?”_

_“What?” Renjun said._

_“Why is the thirteenth birthday the Initiation Year?”_

_Renjun shrugged. “I was thirteen when I myself became boss, that’s all. It seemed like a good age.”_

_“Oh. Well, none of my classmates at school are robbing banks for_ their _birthdays,” Jisung chuckled. “They’re lame, huh?”_

_“Wouldn’t call them lame. They’re just different. In a parallel universe, you might be one of them.”_

_Jisung scoffed. “Me? No, I was born to be a mafia member.”_

_They pulled up by the mansion. “That’s right,” Renjun said, softly, with a touch of wistfulness. “Maybe we were all born to end up like this.”_

_He spoke the words as if they were a citrus fruit he’d chewed on for so long it’d started tasting more bitter than sweet._

###

When Jisung walked out of his bedroom dressed in that form-fitting turtleneck, every single coherent thought vanished from Chenle’s mind. 

“Oh my God you look good,” he babbled. _Those jeans. Those boots. His body._ He wanted to cry. “Like, really good. Like, you could probably be a model, good. Where did you learn to look so good?”

“Uh,” Jisung said, wide-eyed as to how Chenle’s usually proficient vocabulary had been reduced to the sole adjective of _good_. “I . . . Huh. Do I really . . . ?” He squinted down at himself, as if trying to see what Chenle saw. “Thanks, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Chenle said, a little breathless.

Jisung peered at him. “Do you really want me to walk all around the contempire like this, though? Like, don’t you think I’d scare people off?”

“No, you’re not that scary.” _Although your hotness is pretty damn frightening._ Chenle thought the outfit honestly looked like what he’d always imagined that one hottie Rochester from _Jane Eyre_ to be wearing.

Jisung breathed out a sigh of tangible relief. “Okay, then.”

“And it’s not like we’ll be walking anywhere,” Chenle said, looping his arm with the other boy’s and marching down the hall. “We’re going to be biking instead. Don’t tell Huang, but I found his storage room full of antique bicycles, so old that they’re not even the holo ones, and I can’t wait to use them.”

“Uh, Chenle.”

“Hmm?”

Wincing, Jisung faced him. “I don’t know how to ride a bicycle.”

Chenle’s shriek of horror echoed throughout the entirety of the mansion.

###

“I can’t believe this,” Chenle groused. “What happened to your _childhood_ ? Who grows up not knowing how to ride a bike? Who even—who even _does_ that?”

They were at the park, in the middle of the flattest, widest trail they could find, Chenle standing to the side with his hands resting Jisung’s shoulders as the taller hovered awkwardly just above his bicycle seat, not quite sitting on it. 

“This is scary,” Jisung said. “Did the boss not have any, like, other ones in his storage closet? Because this one is, like . . .”

“Too small? Your legs are long, I know,” Chenle said, peering down at the spindly vehicle painted a dusky shade of rust. Or maybe that really _was_ rust.

“No, it’s just. Did he maybe have . . . a bike with three wheels?”

Chenle stared at the side of his head. “Are you talking about a tricycle?”

“Is that what it’s called? Yeah, a tricycle. I feel like it’d be a lot safer.”

An elderly couple walking past them paused to give the two boys an odd look. It was probably a comical sight, with Jisung nearly six feet tall and dressed like the undertaker, yet cowering at his puny bike. Chenle internally face-palmed. “Jisung, just _sit_ on the _seat_.”

“Why are you making me do this?” Jisung whined. “This isn’t part of the plan. I thought we were going to get shaved ice downtown!”

“I changed my mind. And I’m changing your life for the better, you’re welcome.”

“What? My life was way better before I met you!”

“Before you met me, you’d never had a curly fry!”

“Curly fries are unnatural! And so are bicycles!”

Chenle tightened his grip on Jisung’s shoulders. “On three, sit down, and I’ll give you a push—you just have to pedal.”

Jisung squawked and tried to get off the bike, but Chenle held him down. “Chenle, _please_!”

“One . . ."

“If—if you let me off, I’ll buy you all the shaved ice in the world!”

“Two . . ."

“My helmet’s too loose! You have to give me time to fix it—”

“Three!” Chenle gave a push. 

The bicycle sputtered into motion. Startled, Jisung instinctively took his feet off the ground and placed them on the pedals. “ _Don’t let go of me!”_ he yelled—

“Okay, it’s okay, I’ve got you,” Chenle said, keeping his hands on Jisung’s shoulders as the pink-haired boy pedaled his first distance down the trail. At first, the bike was unsteady, and Jisung let out a squeak every time he veered too far left or right. Chenle shouted encouragement, telling him to pedal faster for it to wobble less. Face screwed in panic, Jisung obeyed. 

“There you go, you’re picking up speed.” By now Chenle was running to keep up alongside the bike.

“I’m fucking _terrified_ ,” the pink-haired boy shouted, accelerating. 

“You’re doing great!”

“I’m going to _die_ —”

“Just keep going!”

The bike was speeding up too fast for Chenle to match its pace. Panting, he fell behind, releasing Jisung’s shoulders. The taller boy kept going, not noticing he was gone.

“This is actually kind of fun,” he shouted. “How do I turn?”

“Just tilt the handles,” Chenle called. 

“How, though?” He fumbled with the handlebars, nearing the end of the trail, which was blocked by a row of bushes. 

“It’s easy, just turn around and come back to me—”

“ _What_? You’re not still behind me? Oh my God help I don’t know how to turn around—”

“Jisung tilt the handles—”

Jisung screamed. Chenle quickly covered his eyes with his hands, afraid that if he opened them, he’d see Jisung sprawled out in the bushes, the bike upturned several paces away with its wheels still spinning in the air. 

But the telltale crashing sound never came. Chenle peeked through a gap in his fingers to find a grinning Jisung biking back over, unharmed, having figured out how to accomplish the turn last-minute. His helmet really was too loose—it had slipped off and now hung by its strap against his throat. His exposed mop of pink hair was tousled by the wind, bangs swept off his forehead. 

His smile was blinding. Chenle’s heart kicked into overtime. 

Jisung slowed the bicycle, waiting until it came to a standstill before he swung his leg off. He lowered the bike to the ground bounded over to Chenle, looking like the happiest boy in the world. “Did you see that? I did it!”

Chenle grinned back and reached up to unclasp his helmet strap for him. “Hell yeah, you did.”

Jisung cast a backward glance at the bicycle. “I still don’t think I’m up to go riding all around the contempire on that thing, though.” 

“You don’t have to, we can just walk it,” Chenle said, giggling, pressing a palm to Jisung’s rosy cheek. “Gosh, you’re burning up. We could use some shaved ice to cool you down.”

Jisung flushed even more. “Yeah, alright.”

They collected his bicycle, then grabbed Chenle’s, which had been resting a tree the whole time, and left the park to head downtown. On the way, Jisung regales him with tales of his childhood: how he had never learned to bike because he just hadn’t needed to. Instead, he spent his free time joyriding with that other mafia boy Yangyang, until Renjun had caught onto their activities and banned Jisung from the driver’s seat. (Jisung didn’t know how to drive.) (Neither did Yangyang, really, not back then. They were both just messing around.)

“What about your parents?” Chenle asked as they entered the shaved ice shop. It was a cute place, walls painted cherry-red and employees wearing matching aprons. The air smelled like sugar—Chenle’s favorite smell. “Why didn’t your parents teach you how to bike?”

“Well, eh, they’re not big on the whole childhood thing,” Jisung said.

“What does that mean?” Chenle made his way to the counter. There was a short queue of other customers. A guy at the end of the line talked on his phone, holding the hand of his toddler daughter, who was sucking a lollipop—when her big eyes caught on Jisung, she took her lollipop out of her mouth in awe. 

“Like, I don’t know,” Jisung said, not noticing the kid. “My parents are nice and all, but they’ve always sort of treated me like a grown-up.”

“That sounds great,” Chenle said, nodding. “Nothing at all like the way Jeno and Mark treat me. You wouldn’t believe it. Jeno says Mark wouldn’t let me eat whole grapes until I was _seven_ —he would cut them into slices and feed them to me because he was too afraid of me choking.”

Jisung snorted. “That’s, like, cute shit, though.”

“More like embarrassing. Mark packed my lunch every day and gave me a kiss on the top of my head when he dropped me off at school. Kissed me, right in front of all the other kids. God.”

“But that kinda sounds nice,” Jisung mumbled. “You know? Like, because I’ve never really had someone do that.”

“Maybe it’s because you’re so tall. Not sure how anyone’d be able to _reach_ the top of your head, much less kiss it.”

“Ugh, that’s not—” Jisung laughed. “Lele, you’re missing the point.”

Then suddenly he grew quiet. Chenle turned to look at him and was startled to find him blushing like a tomato.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I—I’m sorry. It just slipped out.”

“What did?”

Jisung cringed. “The nickname?”

“Oh. Lele? Oh, that’s fine! I like being called that.” Grinning, he patted Jisung on the arm. “Aww, stop getting all red.”

“I’m not red,” Jisung said, very red. “Let’s—let’s just choose our shaved ice flavors and get out of here.”

Chenle relented, leaning against the taller boy’s side as he peered up at the menu. His all-time favorite flavors had always been blue and green (they had some sort of complex, wordy names that he never cared to remember), and he’d used to have a great time swirling the syrups in intricate patterns into his ice. That was before the shaved ice shops started transitioning away from Build-Your-Own-Cone; they’d started to catch onto how much unnecessary syrup the customers liked to put into their desserts. Now, the cashier would be the one putting the syrup in. Chenle was still bitter about it.

“Are you a superhero?” 

It was the toddler with the lollipop. She gazed expectantly at Jisung.

Jisung startled and glanced behind his own shoulder, as if checking to make sure the kid wasn’t talking to someone else. “Um . . . no?”

“Really? You look like one.” The toddler scanned him up and down. “It’s the pants. Only superheroes wear pants that tight.”

Chenle cackled. “Doesn’t it make his legs look great?”

“Are you seriously sexualizing me in a conversation with a two-year-old?” Jisung hissed under his breath to him.

“I’m spitting straight facts! And so is she!”

The guy on the phone turned around. He had fluffy, pale brown hair and freckles sprinkled on top of his full cheeks. “Sorry,” he said, with an apologetic glance down at the toddler whose hand he was holding, “is she bothering you? She doesn’t really have a filter, I’m still trying to teach her how to be polite around strangers—”

Chenle cut him off. “Oh my God, _Felix_?”

The guy blinked. Then his face split into a grin. “Oi, hey, Chenle! My bio seat partner! Fancy seeing you around here.”

“Holy shit, since when were you a dad? Bro, I had no idea—”

Felix burst out laughing. “Wait, wait, wait, _no_. I’m not a dad. This is my stepsister, Naeun.” He pulled on the toddler’s hand. “Ugh, for the last time, stop eating so much candy, you’re going to give yourself a sugar high before we’ve even gotten our shaved ice!”

 _Stepsister_. “Oh, okay,” Chenle exhaled. “That makes a lot more sense.”

Felix wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, bruh, there’s no way she’d be my legit child. I have zero capacity for the responsibility it takes to be a parent. I can barely keep my school grades up, haha—hey, did you get around to doing that bio presentation? Because I haven’t even started on the required reading yet, oof.”

“No saying the S-word,” Jisung spoke up, his voice hard. 

Felix raised his eyebrows. 

“School, he means,” Chenle said, not sure why Jisung sounded so standoffish all of the sudden. “You’re not supposed to talk about school on someone’s birthday, you know.”

“Is it your birthday?” Felix cried. “Congratulations! It’s Naeun’s birthday tomorrow, that’s why I’m taking her out for sweets and stuff.” He cast a look down at the little girl, who blinked innocently back up at him. “Look at that, still sucking on the lolly even though I told her to stop. Ingrate, I tell you.”

Chenle giggled. There was something about Felix’s Australian accent that made it so fun to listen to his voice. “I think she’s cute.”

“Yes, well, it runs in the family.” Felix winked. “You would know. From one cute person to another, I mean.”

“Greasy,” Chenle commented, feigning a shudder. “Anyway, I think it’s funny how your sister thought Jisung was a superhero.”

Felix turned to give Jisung a brief once-over. “Well, I see where she got the impression. But she’s way off.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jisung said, testily.

“Ooh,” said Naeun in a dramatic voice. In a stage whisper she spoke to her stepbrother: “Is he . . . a _mafia guy_?”

Chenle’s eyes bugged out of his head. Throwing Jisung a panicked look, he quickly started to bluster, “Mafia guy? What? No. What mafia guy? Sung is just a normal high school kid, very normal, lives an average life, a very average and law-abiding life—”

“Great job, Naeun, you got it right!” Felix crouched down to boop her nose. “Yes, love. He’s part of Huang Renjun’s outfit.”

Chenle was speechless. 

“And _you’re_ a member of Lee Taeyong’s group,” Jisung said. “Don’t think I don’t know who you are.”

“Geez, Park, no need to sound so aggressive,” Felix said, tilting his head up at him. “Just because our bosses are rivals doesn’t mean we have to be.” 

“I’ll be your rival in any capacity anytime I want,” Jisung snapped.

A slow smile spread over Felix’s face. He gave the two of them, especially Chenle, an appraising look. “I see.”

“What do you mean?” Chenle asked. 

“Would you look at that, we’re at the front of the line!” Jisung said, his voice too loud. “Quick, Felix, you better order! The cashier’s waiting.”

The cashier was, indeed, waiting. Felix straightened up, turned back around, and hefted his stepsister up into his arms so she could see the menu and pick out the flavors she wanted.

Chenle sent Jisung a weird look, but Jisung was too busy glaring at the back of Felix’s head to notice.

Felix finished paying for his shaved ice. “Alright, guys, I’m off,” he said, saluting at them as he made his way out the door hand-in-hand with his sister. Chenle waved them good-bye; Jisung didn’t.

They ordered their stuff and then sat down to eat it. 

“So Felix is a mob member too,” Chenle said faintly, digging in. “Did you know already?” 

“’Course I did. He goes to our school.”

“I’ve never seen him in anything but our school uniform. You said he works for Taeyong, right?” Chenle said. “What kind of outfits does Taeyong have his employees wear?”

Jisung scowled. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t know, maybe they go around wearing hot shit all the time,” Chenle mused, poking his spoon at his shaved ice. “That would explain how his sister recognized your clothes as, like, mafia clothes.”

“Well, their uniforms don’t look as good as ours.” Jisung’s voice rose. “They’re like, dark green tuxedos. Awful. Ugly. A fashion sin.”

“Since when do you care about fashion sins?”

“Well, I know _you_ care about them.”

Chenle squinted. “Since when do you care if I care about them? Why won’t you let me imagine Felix wearing a hot mafia man tuxedo?”

Jisung shrank. “. . . I would really rather you not imagine that.”

For a moment, Chenle was completely befuddled.

Then it dawned on him.

“Sung, are you jealous?”

Jisung muttered something indecipherable and sank down lower in his chair.

“Sung, tell me.”

“No.”

“ _Tell me_.” 

“Okay, fine!” Jisung said. “Maybe I am, so what? Why are you so—so like, bothered by it? Since when are you so chummy with Felix?”

“Well, first of all, if you don’t get along with him, that’s between you two. What bothers me is you acting jealous when you don’t even have a right to be jealous.” Chenle’s heart was beating fast, fast, faster. “Because it’s not like—like you and I are—are _boyfriends_ or something.”

His voice cracked. He stuck a spiteful spoonful of shaved ice into his mouth.

Jisung was quiet.

Then—

“Then let’s be. Let’s be boyfriends or something.”

Chenle’s shaved ice went down the wrong pipe and he doubled over, coughing up a storm. Jisung pounded his back until it subsided.

Voice hoarse, eyes watering, Chenle said, “W—What did you say?”

“Boyfriends. Or something. I mean, unless you don’t want to be,” Jisung added in a rush. “In which case, I respect that. I just—well, I know it’s sort of a dick move to get jealous when you’re being sweet to other boys—but. I like you.”

Chenle’s whole world grinded to a halt.

He blinked. Once. Twice.

“I really, really, really, _really_ like you,” Jisung clarified, as if he hadn’t been articulate enough the first time. “And—if you—if the feeling is mutual, then—”

He broke off, his gaze hopeful.

Chenle stared back, dumbfounded, his heart racing a mile a minute. 

_I have a crush on Park Jisung._

He’d never had a crush in his life. He’d thought not having any was just a part of who he was. But here was one, sitting right in front of him in all his messy pink-haired glory, looking cute in that way he always always did. How long had it been since Chenle had first started realizing he was cute? From the beginning? Somewhere in between? Did it _matter_ ? _I have a crush on Park Jisung and he has a crush on me back_.

Because he was too busy cartwheeling in glee around in his own head, Chenle forgot to respond. And Jisung’s shoulders sank.

“Oh.”

Chenle’s heart seized at the smallness of his voice. “No, wait, I—” 

“No, it’s okay.” Jisung leaned back, ran a hand through his pink hair. “Shit, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have dropped this bombshell on you on your birthday, huh? That wasn’t cool. I know it’s a lot of emotional baggage, we can just forget that I ever said anything, please just erase it from memory—”

“This is the best birthday present ever,” Chenle said. “My crush likes me back.”

“Your . . .” Jisung swallowed. “Your crush?”

Chenle flung a spoonful of shaved ice at him, only for him to dodge. “Yes, you idiot! I’m thirsty for you! You’re the cutest person I’ve ever met! Please date me! Be my birthday present! Will you be my birthday present?”

“I—yes.” Jisung nodded furiously. “Yes. Yes!”

“ _Yes_ ,” Chenle cried, smiling so wide his face hurt. He rocked back in his chair. “There, now we’re officially dating. So I can, like, take you on cute dates and do cute shit like kiss you on the top of your head the way no one’s done to you before. Yes.”

“Isn’t this a date, though?” Jisung said, gesturing around at their booth, the shaved ice cones sitting on the table between them. 

“Well, I guess so,” Chenle said. He paused. “Come to think of it, we practically go on dates all the time, you and me. We hang out so fucking much.”

“I like hanging out with you,” Jisung offered.

“I would hope so. We’re _boyfriends_ after all,” Chenle said, smug.

“Does this mean you’re going to make me wear this sexy mafia uniform every day?” Jisung said, sounding almost resigned.

Chenle gave a solemn nod. “Boyfriend privileges.” Then he perked up. “So you _do_ admit that it’s sexy!”

“It’s what I imagine Mr. Rochester to be wearing,” Jisung confessed. “You know, that guy from _Jane Eyre_.”

“Oh my God, that’s what I thought too.”

From there, they devolved into talking animatedly about _Jane Eyre_ as well as about all the ancient books written by the Bronte sisters, all while stealing bites of each other’s desserts. The whole thing was very easy, very normal, just part of their Best Friend Routine, but the way Jisung at one point shyly reached over the table to take his hand made it very clear that this date was different from all the other dates—finally, Chenle could hold his hand and not make up some sort of ridiculous excuse about how platonic bros were just naturally tactile all the time. 

It was a good feeling. Chenle decided it really was the best birthday ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow that was an unprecedented amount of chensung
> 
> anyway oK HOLY MEATBALLS STREAM RIDIN'??????? WHAT A BOP. RELOAD DROPPED 4 DAYS AGO and i am SLAIN.
> 
> ~ Yerin 050320


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *rubs hands together with a diabolical smile* this chapter goes out to all ye who have been patiently suffering thru this noren slow burn with me :3 shit’s gonna go DOWN right now
> 
> welcome to my favorite chapter yet

The dusk was cinematic, shrouding the contempire in a dusty evening glow. Tonight, though, there wasn’t any time to enjoy the beauty of the sunset, or to don a mask as protection from the color pollution that permeated the air—no, Jeno was occupied with other things. Like chasing down a pack of deadmen.

“They’re hardly a pack,” Renjun grunted from beside him. They were crouching on a rooftop, catching their breath from running all around the contempire for such a long strain of time. Renjun had insisted on travelling by skyline rather than on the ground—for the element of surprise, as well as a better vantage point for Jeno’s guns. “There’s only four of them.”

“Four is a lot,” Jeno panted. “Do you think we should come up with an official name for a group of deadmen?”

“You mean, other than just deadmen?”

“Yeah. Like, the way a group of crows is called a murder. Or a family of lions is called a pride. Although I guess lions went extinct ages ago, didn’t they?”

“They did.” Renjun peered out over the city, the wind ruffling his hair. A couple weeks ago he’d dyed it a shade of yie: an exotic, expensive color that was a mix between pink, pale purple, blond. It suited him. “What should we name a group of humans? I think imbeciles would be a good title.”

Jeno followed his gaze and saw where he was looking: a crowd of a couple hundred civilians, gathered at the main square, having some sort of festival by the looks of it. People were dancing to music that thrummed with a low bass Jeno could feel even from so far away. The city fountain, a sculpture that resembled a firework made of stone, had been cut off its supply of water so that the partygoers could drape banners all along its dry limbs.

Jeno tilted his head. “Renjun, I think that’s pride.”

“What did we just say about lions being extinct?”

“Not that kind of pride. Look, there are rainbow streamers on the fountain, and everyone’s carrying flags.”

“Wait, but aren’t pride parades supposed to be actual parades?” Renjun said. “Why does it appear as if they’re all just having an outdoor club night?”

“Maybe the parade happened earlier and this is just the afterparty?” Jeno mused. He leaned forward so he could get a better view. “It looks fun.”

Renjun got to his feet. “Yes, well, there’s no time.”

Jeno knew he was right. He stood up too, scouring all around his view of the city in hopes of spotting the rogue deadmen they’d been hunting. This sort of activity had become a regular occurrence lately, even though technically the police were the ones who were supposed to be taking care of the deadmen attacks. Renjun had shot that out of the park when Jeno had brought it up. _I want to capture one of them so we can study its anatomy_ , he’d said to him. _As much as Jennie Kim likes me, she would never even consider letting me take home one of her would-be zombie captives._

“If we don’t catch the pack of deadmen soon, those people obliviously partying their asses off will be eaten alive,” Renjun said presently. “And I don’t believe the undead care if their dinner is queer or not.”

“Yeah, we’d probably all taste the same to them.” Jeno paused. “Although I personally do think gays taste better—”

“I think I see something.” Renjun reached into his belt and took out a holo-disc, then threw it down in the space between this rooftop and the next. It formed a small, foot-sized platform for him to step on and get to the adjacent building. He took out more hoverdiscs until he’d quickly created a whole trail of them.

Jeno watched with a dejected sigh as Renjun hurried off, the discs vanishing as soon as he’d used them and returning back to their owner's belt to be used anew.

Lately he had been trying his best to make advances on Renjun, tossing out pick-up line after pick-up line, all too obvious to be called flukes. But Renjun had the same stubborn reaction every time: blatantly ignoring it. It was a strange turn of the tables, especially because when they’d first met all those months ago it had initially been Renjun hitting on _him_ to no avail.

“Wait for me,” Jeno called, taking out his own supply of holo-discs and running across them to catch up with Renjun. In between gauging his steps and making sure he didn’t accidentally miss a foothold, Jeno distantly wondered why Renjun was being so closed-off. It definitely had to do with the conversation they’d had in his office that day Renjun made him lieutenant—he could still remember the way Renjun had backed him up against a wall, the way he had held him in his arms . . .

Jeno snapped out of it. Renjun stood in the middle of the air suspended between two rooftops, peering down at the alley beneath him. He glanced up at Jeno and motioned for him to hurry.

Jeno joined him in the air, ignoring the way the hoverdiscs vibrated unpleasantly beneath his feet from the stress of holding him stationary for so long. “Do you see them?”

“Speak quieter,” Renjun whispered, pointing down below. 

In the alley was a dumpster, overflowing with trash and smelling like death itself. In it were also a couple abandoned attempts at homemade pride flags, obviously having been deemed too ugly to take to the party. Jeno covered his nose at the stench coming from the garbage—sometimes he forgot how gruesome Los Angeles could really be. 

But this time, the smell couldn’t just be blamed on poor urban sanitation. There was something _moving_ in the dumpster, shifting around and spilling stray soda cans out onto the ground. After a moment, a pale-skinned arm stretched out of the rubbish, flailed about in the air for a moment, and then receded back out of sight.

“Do you think they’re all in there?” Jeno whispered to Renjun. 

“I think it’s just the one,” Renjun said. 

He placed a couple more holo-discs, expertly laying them out in a spiral stair formation, and quickly headed down toward the dumpster. Jeno took out his nerf gun and aimed, prepared to fire as soon as Renjun startled the deadman into view.

The mafia boss was nearing the dumpster when all of the sudden it rattled, shaking back and forth on its wheels, trash spilling out faster and faster at unprecedented rates. Then the deadman surfaced, a grotesque sickly-skinned creature with a fixed grimace and short dark hair matted along its shoulders. Its bare body was wrapped in the tatters of a pride flag. Without hesitation, as if it had been laying in wait, it launched itself out of the rubbish and right toward Renjun. 

“Now!” Renjun shouted.

Jeno fired. A stream of bright magenta-colored bubbles came spurting out of the gun, turning solid midair and nailing the deadman in the head. It was struck out of its lunge toward Renjun and it landed on the ground, emitting a blood-curdling screech that sounded scarily human, and clawed at its scalp where rings of acid were starting to expand across its skin. 

“Nice shot,” Renjun said, “but I think you need one more.”

“I don’t know how many reloads this thing has,” Jeno said, hefting the nerf gun. “Can’t you just shoot it in the brain and be done with it?”

“Ugh, no. There’s a reason why we decided to use the color gun tonight when we’ve been using normal guns all the other times! We’re supposed to be experimenting with how the weapon works.”

“But I don’t want to run out of ammo or anything!”

“Just fire it again, I’m sure you won’t run out—”

The deadman shrieked again and curled into the fetal position, clutching its ravaged head, which looked like it was beginning to melt. 

Jeno cringed. “Just put it out of its misery, would you, Renjun?”

Renjun rolled his eyes and raised his own gun, but suddenly there was a sudden shout and the sound of footsteps pounding into the alley. Renjun whirled to find a pair of female pedestrians, wide-eyed and alarmed, both with rainbow face paint smeared across their cheeks. Jeno muttered a quick swear.

“We heard the screams,” gasped one of the women. Her hair was pulled back in a long ponytail. “What’s going on here?”

Her blue-haired companion went bug-eyed at the sight of the deadman on the ground, swathed in a pride flag and thrashing. She threw Renjun a horrified look. Renjun cleared his throat, probably preparing to give some sort of suave explanation for the scene she was seeing.

She cut him off with a yell. “Put your gun down! You _monster_! Attacking a defenseless person in an alley!”

Renjun stopped. “Excuse me, _who’s_ the monster here—?”

“Are you okay?” cried Ponytail Woman, running toward the deadman with outstretched arms. 

“Wait! Stop!” Jeno threw holo-discs down and made his way down to the ground, grabbing the woman by the forearms before she could reach the deadman. “That’s not—that’s not a person!”

“Let me go, you homophobe.” She struggled against his hold. “Gay people are still people. Didn’t you know?”

Jeno spluttered, so utterly bewildered that he let go of her arms. She immediately pushed past him and knelt down beside the deadman—

Renjun raised his gun. The girl with the blue hair screamed, obviously under the impression he was going to to shoot her friend, and tackled him. The shot went wide. Jeno saw Renjun’s head hit the ground with a _crack_ barely audible over the noise of the gun.

“Renjun!” Jeno yelled, feeling a hot flood of panic.

On the ground and wrestling Bluenette for control of his gun, Renjun shouted back, “Shoot it! Before it gets _away_!”

“But—” _But you’re hurt_ —

Then there was the strangled scream of Ponytail, probably having just realized that the person she’d mistaken for a pride party goer was actually the furthest thing from a human. Jeno forced himself to turn away from Renjun and was just in time to see Ponytail thrashing in the grip of the zombie, its jaws poised to sink into the soft flesh of her neck. 

Jeno whipped out his nerf gun and squeezed the trigger. 

It was a good thing he had practiced so long perfecting his aim with Jisung, or the magenta color bullets might have accidentally hit Ponytail. But instead, they flew true and lodged themselves into the side of the deadman’s head. It choked out a final agonized shriek. The sizzling noise of the acid was so loud it sounded like a barbecue grill—after a long, drawn-out heartbeat, the deadman succumbed to the acid and toppled over onto its side, foaming at the mouth.

Hyperventilating, Ponytail scrambled out of the monster’s grip and rushed over to her friend Bluenette, who quickly climbed off Renjun. The two women fled, arm-in-arm, casting terrified glances behind them. 

Jeno didn’t wait. He dove for his boss. “Oh my God oh my God Renjun are you okay oh my God—”

“M’fine,” Renjun muttered, gingerly pulling into a sitting position. “Just . . . head hurts a little.”

Jeno let out a distressed noise and took the boss’s face in his hands, keeping his head still. Renjun didn’t protest as Jeno carefully turned his head from side to side, inspecting it for damage—he inhaled through his teeth when he saw the dark trail trickling down Renjun's neck.

“Shit, you’re _bleeding_.”

“Great,” Renjun sighed. “Now help me up.”

Jeno pulled him to his feet. The boss swayed a little, putting a hand to his temple—his face was pinched. 

He pulled away from Jeno when he reached out, though. “I’m not made out of glass, Jeno. I’m not going to break.”

Jeno faltered. “I know, but I just . . .”

Renjun silently began limping over to where the deadman lay. Heart in his throat, Jeno followed, and helped him wrap up the lifeless corpse in the trash bag they had brought with them tonight. 

Once they had tied the bag in a secure knot and Jeno had hefted it over his shoulder, he ventured to ask one more time.

“Are you sure . . . ?”

“Yes. I’m fine.” Renjun headed out of the alley.

He didn’t look too unsteady, so Jeno decided not to press. He’d get Kunhang on his case later. 

For now, he just followed Renjun down the street. When he asked if they were going to go after the other three rogue deadmen, all Renjun did was shrug and say he’d leave that up to the police. He’d already achieved his own goal for tonight: one deadman, albeit slightly acid-eaten, to be examined back at the mansion. 

On their route, they inevitably ended up in the vicinity of the pride party.

Up close, the event was a lot bigger and louder than it had been from far away, and Jeno could make out chanting and laughter mingling with the heavy music. 

Renjun let out a long sigh. “Another day, Lee.”

“Huh?” 

“You look like a wistful puppy with a FOMO. I’m telling you don’t worry. We can go to a pride event another day.”

They were getting closer to the main square. The streets were empty, and Jeno and Renjun technically weren’t supposed to be out and about in the open like this, but they were both too tired to use their holo-discs or to map out a more discreet route through the underground sewer tunnels. They were mutually counting on the fact that no one would pass by and see them. Jeno shifted his grip on the trash bag.

“Can we?” he said quietly. 

Renjun nodded.

They walked in silence.

Jeno spoke up. “Are you sure you’re—”

“For the last time, I’m _okay_ ,” Renjun huffed. “I’ve sustained worse injuries than a little knock to the head.”

Jeno bit his lower lip. That hadn’t been what he’d been going to ask. But truth to be told, he was a little glad for the interruption—asking a blunt question about Renjun’s sexuality would have made for an awkward atmosphere. 

_You're hopeless, you know that_ , he thought to himself, shoulders sinking. _You know he’s gay. You just want him to be straight as an excuse for why he doesn’t like you back._

All of the sudden Renjun stopped walking. He flattened himself against the closest wall, cocking his ear upward. Jeno hurried beside him and pinpointed where he was looking: around the corner, a pair of pedestrians were approaching, their shadows made visible by the surprisingly serendipitous street lamps.

“Someone’s coming.” Renjun’s voice was low. Without hesitation, he took Jeno’s wrist and dragged him into the closest alley. Actually, no, it was barely an alley, just a narrow walkway between the two buildings, and barely wide enough to fit two people. Jeno found himself halfway pressed against the wall and halfway against Renjun’s side as the boss poked his head out to see if the pedestrians were getting any closer.

“You’re squishing me,” Jeno whispered.

Renjun shot him a short glare. From such a proximity, it was a thousand times more intense—Jeno felt his heart stutter at the sight of Renjun’s face so close to his, almond-shaped eyes as grippingly dark as ever.

“I can hear them talking about smelling something weird. No doubt it’s _that_.” He nodded at Jeno’s trash bag.

Jeno was about to say that there was no way Renjun could have been able to pick up a conversation above the loudness of the music, but Renjun put a finger to Jeno’s lips, then sank further against him, sandwiching him against the wall. Jeno’s stomach burst into a storm of butterflies. _Concealing us in the shadows_ , he thought frantically, raising his eyes to the sky. _That’s all he’s doing. This is—this is intimacy out of necessity, not real intimacy, mafia bosses don’t do intimacy, ugh stop thinking the word intimacy when Renjun’s like literally on top of you_ —

“Your heart’s beating fast,” Renjun murmured.

“Okay,” Jeno choked out, then inwardly slapped himself at that lameness of that response.

There were audible footsteps coming down the sidewalk toward them. Now, Jeno could make out the strains of a conversation between two guys:

“See, it’s getting stronger. It’s coming from over there.”

“Smells like a dead body.”

The footsteps came closer. Terror trickled down Jeno’s spine. 

Helplessly he shook the trash bag with the deadman’s corpse. “How are we supposed to explain this?” he hissed. “If they call the police on us, Jennie will be so pissed. Bye-bye to our freelance deadman hunting.”

“It’s too late to run,” Renjun said, sounding conflicted. “And there’s no place to hide either.”

The volume of the footsteps grew. Jeno’s panic shot through the roof. 

“Shit, what do we—what should we—”

The guy's was now distinctively closer. “I think I can see their silhouettes—”

Renjun spun, hands landing on Jeno’s shoulders as he tilted his head up and crashed their lips together. 

Every muscle in Jeno’s body went stock-still. The trash bag slipped from his fingers.

Renjun’s grip hardened on his shoulders.

Jeno registered the silent demand, shutting his eyes and kissing back. The boss kissed roughly, almost desperately, with zero tenderness, parting Jeno’s lips without preamble and swiping his tongue against Jeno’s lower teeth. _Fuck_ . Jeno let out a noise that would probably have been embarrassing if he weren’t so far gone. His hands reached up to card through Renjun’s locks— _fuck, his hair is soft_ , he thought as he tugged him closer with it.

Their bodies were flush together. Renjun slipped his arms around Jeno’s waist and kissed him with bruising force, not pausing for breath, just leaning in and in and in. He was pushing Jeno impossibly further up against the wall and in the heat of the moment their hips grinded against each other—Renjun didn’t seem fazed, just licked into his mouth deeper. Jeno’s knees were weak, utterly _weak_ — 

“Just two dudes sucking face,” came the voice, sounding disappointed. “Typical pride night.”

“Let’s go,” said the other voice. 

Their footsteps began to fade.

Jeno started to pull away, but Renjun held him firmly in place and kissed him hard, hard, _harder_. It was teeth and tongue and heat and pleasure and the only word in Jeno’s mind was Renjun’s name. He distantly heard himself gasp it aloud.

It broke the spell. 

Panting, Renjun broke the kiss, stumbling back. 

Jeno’s mind was a puddle. He reached up to gingerly touch his own mouth, staring at the boss the whole while. Renjun’s hair was mussed, lips red and swollen and perfectly kissed—his chest heaved up and down, his eyes unreadable.

Jeno tried to work up the strength to say something. Renjun spoke first.

“I’m sorry.” 

Then in one swift motion, he took out his holo-discs, tossed them into the sky, and used them to leave.

Winging across the metropolis, he didn’t spare a backward glance. As if he hadn’t just now had his tongue down Jeno’s throat. As if he hadn’t just kissed the living shit out of him and turned the entire universe on its axis. 

There was a smear of blood on Jeno’s palms from where he’d run his fingers through Renjun’s hair. He curled his hands into fists and held them tight against his chest, feeling the harsh thunder of his heartbeat underneath his touch.

###

_A boy kicked pond water at his friend, laughing when the other yelped. It was a pond that housed an astonishing amount of lilies, the fat purple flowers sitting serenely atop their green plates. The ankle-deep water was so dark it almost looked black, pointing to probably some type of intense algae contamination or color pollution from the nearby sewer that no doubt fed into the pond. Los Angeles was not a contempire known for its cleanliness or regard for nature._

_“Stoppit, you’re going to get my clothes all dirty,” complained the friend._

_“Just roll up your pants,” the boy said. As demonstration, he pointed down at his own pants, hiked up to his knees._

_“Yeah, and get wrinkles in my corduroy? No thanks.”_

_The boy pouted at his sharp tone and went back to playing with the lilies, trying to tug one of them out of the water and check its underbelly for what it might look like._

_“Such pretty flowers, in such an ugly environment,” he sighed dreamily. “I’m impressed. They’re just so precious.”_

_“Yeah,” said the friend, gazing right at the other. “Precious.”_

###

Renjun stormed into his office and all but slammed himself into the wall.

From an outside perspective it may have looked as if he were attempting to kill himself, or at least inflict self-harm to the point of unconsciousness—but after a couple moments it grew apparent that there was a specific purpose to his attack on the wall. He was trying to find its hidden compartment panel. 

Finally, after much heavy swearing, he located it. Jammed his hand against the clockwork panel and watched the office wall slide into the floor, granting him entry to the secret room adjacent to his office. As soon as he entered, the clockwork wall rose back up behind him, effectively sealing off the outside world.

Renjun’s head was pounding as if someone had gone and stirred up a hurricane in there. On instinct, he groped about for the light switch in the room, only to immediately flick them back off again when their brightness sent a searing wave of nausea through his head. 

He didn’t need the lights, anyway. He knew every painting in this room like the back of his hand. With a slight groan, he leaned against the wall and sank to the ground, burying his head in his hands to quell the shaking in his fingertips.

 _I shouldn’t have done that._ He squeezed his eyes shut. _That kiss._

But Jeno’s mouth had tasted so _good_ . . .

“No,” Renjun said aloud, sounding for all the world like a man at the end of his wits. “No, no, no, no, no.”

Maybe tonight would all turn out to be one long nightmare. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d dreamt about kissing Jeno.

He reached for the pendant on his necklace and started opening and shutting it. _Click. Click_. The habit didn’t ease his mind. He could still vividly, wonderfully remember the feeling of Jeno’s body against his, Jeno’s fingers tangled through his hair—it had been without doubt the hottest makeout session Renjun had ever had in his life, never mind that he’d technically only done it out of necessity.

"What the fuck," Renjun murmured aloud. "Holy shit, what the fuck."

Even after the immediate moment of necessity had passed, Renjun had kept right on _kissing_ him. He hadn’t even noticed himself getting carried away—who could blame him? Here was his every wild fantasy, right in his arms, and _kissing him back_.

But as soon as he had heard Jeno gasp his name into the kiss, everything had come crashing down.

The sound had been mind-numbing, sinful, sending heat all the way through Renjun’s body and making his toes curl and his heartbeat spasm. He’d been so horrified by his own traitorous body’s eager reaction that it was all he could do to pull away.

Renjun was no stranger to lust. This had not been lust; lust was heartless.

But that kiss had had a terrifying amount of heart.

He buried his head in his hands and shrank into himself, making his body as small as possible. Desperately he hoped he could hide from the eyeless stares of the boy in the paintings surrounding him. It was a futile hope.

###

Jeno arrived back at the mansion in a daze.

“Hey,” he said to Jisung when the younger boy opened the door and found him standing there shivering in the April cold. “Is Renjun back yet?”

“Yes,” Jisung said, eyeing him with a wary look. “Uh . . . he flew in looking all sorts of debauched.”

Jeno pushed past him. “I’m going to bed.”

“Didn’t you just _come_ from bed? You look equally as debauched, no offense.”

“I was out hunting.” Jeno turned back and made a halfhearted gesture with his trash bag, showing Jisung the proof of his night. “Got any place to store an undead body?”

Jisung nodded. “Yeah, actually, we’ve got a spare body fridge for these sorts of things. I can take care of it, if you like.”

Jeno was slightly surprised by the offer. He couldn’t begin to imagine why a high schooler would even volunteer to do such a menial and unpleasant task such as shuttling a corpse into a preservation fridge—and on a school night, no less. But then again, ever since Jisung had started dating Chenle, he had been becoming increasingly friendly toward Jeno. It wasn’t that he hadn’t been warm before—but now, Jeno found himself going out with Jisung severely often, whether it be to play at the gaming arcade or to watch a new holo-movie or to stock up on unhealthy snacks at the local mini-mart. The two boys had bonded countless nights over the shared experience of hiding the contraband snacks from Renjun, who made it a point to express how he thought greasy food was the end of the civilized world.

Jeno wrenched his thoughts away from Renjun, remembering to answer Jisung’s question. The teen was still standing expectantly in front of him. 

“Wow, a body fridge. Didn’t know we had one of those.”

“Come on, loot,” Jisung said, shaking his head. “You totally should’ve known that by now. How long has it been since your promotion? A few months?”

“Yeah, a few.” _Five and a half._ “What’s a loot?” He got the feeling it didn’t refer to the dictionary definition of ransacked goods.

“Oh, it’s just a nickname for lieutenant.”

“Oh.” There was something in the way that Jisung said the word _lieutenant_ that made Jeno’s ears prick—it had a faint tone of something big, something bitter, the tone of a word that meant a lot to its speaker. “Has Renjun had a lot of . . . loots?” 

“Actually, no,” Jisung said, with a slight sigh. “You’re his second.”

If Jeno had been feeling a little less worn out tonight, he might have pressed Jisung for more. _Who was the first? Were you the first?_ He’d been wanting to know the answers to these questions for a long time, and here was the perfect opportunity to get them.

But he had no energy to ask, especially when he knew how twitchy Jisung would probably become. His body was aching, and he could feel the buzzing pain that lingered from the incessant vibrations the holo-discs under his feet. Also, the near-constant exposure to the cold night air had his eyes smarting, and his ears still rang with the echoes of gunshots. He could never get used to the _bang_ that came whenever someone squeezed a trigger.

Also, his mouth felt bruised. His mental state was a mirror image: hurt, ruined.

That kiss had absolutely devastated him.

“Okay, here,” Jeno sighed, thrusting the trash bag out toward Jisung. “It’d be great if you could take this to the body fridge, wherever that is.”

Jisung took the bag without qualms. He said something about how Jaemin had come home a little while ago and was waiting up, but Jeno had such little brainpower to listen that he just nodded his way through it until finally Jisung waved him off. Jeno headed up the twin glass staircases, offering the teen a haphazard farewell, along with a reminder to get to sleep soon or he’d be tired for school tomorrow morning. 

_Oh, maybe that’s what this is_ , Jeno thought, legs like lead as he walked up the stairs. _I’m Jisung’s surrogate brother figure._

It explained why the teenager liked hanging around Jeno so much. After all, Jisung and Chenle were practically married by now—Jeno was Jisung’s brother-in-law in all but name. 

After about six minutes of suffering through the stairs, Jeno reached the floor of the quarters he shared with Jaemin. Coming closer, he could hear two familiar voices inside having an animated conversation; he pushed open the bedroom door and shaded his eyes against the bright golden glow of the bedside lamp.

Jaemin was lying on the bed, and Mark was sitting in a chair. Both were in sweats and hoodies.

“I’m telling you, you’re wrong,” Jaemin was saying. “It’s—oh, hi, Jeno. About time you got back. Quick, tell Mark here that my lamp is more than just a glorified nightlight. It’s so much manlier than that.”

“No, it _is_ a glorified nightlight,” Mark said. “Look at it, it’s even shaped like a crescent moon! Do grown men have lamps shaped like that? I don’t think so.”

Jeno cast a tired look at the lamp in question. “It is crescent-shaped,” he agreed, before ducking into the bathroom to get himself cleaned up. 

He took off his contact lenses, replaced them with his glasses. The glasses sort of felt like an artifact from another time period, one where he didn’t wear contacts all day and made a simple paycheck by working in a cafe. Absently he ran his hands through his hair, trying to displace any remnants of the gel he’d used this morning. Suddenly, he was overwhelmed by the memory of Renjun’s hair tangled through his fingers—the recollection left a burning trail in his mind and he let out a loud groan, only barely remembering to take off his glasses before he slammed his forehead against the sink countertop in an attempt to dispel the memory.

Jaemin and Mark’s conversation dwindled from.

“Jen? Honey?” Jaemin called. “Everything alright in there?”

“Yeah,” Jeno mumbled back, rubbing the sore spot on his forehead. 

He took a quick shower, changing into the comfiest pajamas he owned: the ones with the frog print. When he trudged out of the bathroom, it looked like the other guys had been waiting for him.

“Was work rough tonight?” Mark asked gently. 

Drained, Jeno sighed and sat down on the bed. “Is it that obvious?” 

“Yeah,” Mark nodded sympathetically. “I’m always comforting Hyuck after his long work days—it’s pretty easy to tell when his job gets tough.”

“Ah.” Jeno leaned back into the bed, letting his head fall against the mattress. He was disappointed but not surprised when he could see Renjun’s face emblazoned behind his eyelids. 

Jaemin cleared his throat in that way he did when he was grasping for something to say. “You said you were going to try out that new color gun majig, right? How’d it go?”

“Uh,” Jeno tried to think. “I don’t really remember.”

There was a significant moment of silence. Had Jeno’s eyes been open, he would have seen the worried look that Jaemin and Mark traded.

“Jeno,” the oldest finally said. “You’ve been excited over the color gun for _ages_. You were super psyched to get to finally use it today.”

“Yeah? Yeah, I guess.” Jeno gave a tiny shrug. “I only ended up shooting it twice. Did you know there’s a pride party going on in the main square?”

“Oh, yeah. Hyuck wanted to go. He kept saying he wasn’t too tired, but I put him to bed anyway.”

“Aww,” Jaemin said teasingly. “look at you two, being so domestic.”

“Well—hey, you and Jeno are just as bad.”

Jeno made a noncommittal noise and pulled his head into Jaemin’s lap. “Cuddle me,” he mumbled.

Jaemin immediately obliged, leaning down to drop a kiss on his head. It wasn’t enough. Jeno tugged on his friend’s shirtsleeve for more. With practiced ease, Jaemin gathered him up and scooted the both of them back against the headboard of the bed, settling Jeno between his knees. For once Jeno didn’t mind being the little spoon—the warmth of Jaemin’s torso against his back was so familiar and comfortable he immediately felt some of the tension in his head drain away.

Mark blinked at the two of them. “Okay, _ignoring_ the blatant display of domesticity going on right there, I think there’s something up. Are you okay, Jeno? You look really bad tonight.”

Jaemin’s warm arms encircled Jeno’s waist from behind. “Yeah, and you’re even wearing your froggy pajamas—you’re usually happy when you wear those.”

Jeno mumbled something indecipherable and nudged closer, hungry for the coziness. A shiver ran through him as he remembered Renjun’s kiss—it had felt void of emotion.

Wait, no, that wasn’t it. The kiss had had emotion. Just . . . anger. Sadness. 

_What did I do?_ Jeno thought, his heart sinking. _What did I do to make Renjun so sad?_

Jaemin nuzzled into his shoulder, as if he could sense the turmoil going on in the other’s head. After a couple moments they heard Mark getting up out of his seat.

“Well, I guess I’ll head off to bed. I hope you feel better in the morning, Jeno.”

Jaemin whined. “ _No_ , wait, you can’t just leave like that. Come here, give us a kiss.”

A chuckle. “What am I, your mom?”

The answer came without a missed beat. “Yes.”

Mark came closer and obediently pressed his lips against Jaemin’s forehead, then Jeno’s. Jeno opened his eyes just long enough to smile at the older as he left. Jaemin hummed and extracted himself from Jeno to reach over and turn off the bedside lamp.

The bedroom went dark.

“Hey, Jaemin,” Jeno said, sliding under the covers. 

Jaemin crawled back over and slipped under too. “Hmm?” He plumped his pillow loudly. 

“Renjun kissed me.”

Jaemin went still, the pillow only half-plumped.

Jeno felt an inexplicable surge of panic rise in his throat. “He and I were coming back from the kill. And we were getting closer to the pride party and he pulled me into an alley it was a really really small alley he was right up against me? And I thought I’d die of the proximity but then all of the sudden he turned around and I—well, he—me—kissed—”

“Slow down, slow down, baby.” Jaemin’s hand found his and squeezed. “Calm down. What are you saying? He assaulted you? In an alley?”

“ _No_ ,” Jeno said, recoiling. “It—no.”

Another reassuring squeeze. “Why did he kiss you?”

“Well, there were some guys we needed to get away from, but there was no time to find someplace else to hide . . . ” Jeno swallowed. “He kissed me because it’d make a convincing cover for why we were smushed together.”

There. The story was out. He waited, expecting Jaemin to be just as bewildered as he himself was, but after a long breach of silence, all the other said was:

“Was it hot?”

“Was it— _what_?” 

“The kiss, you dummy. Was it hot?”

Jeno’s thoughts drifted back to how every cell in his body had felt so brilliantly, feverishly alive. “Yes, very.”

“Then what’s the issue, hun?” Jaemin sounded both bemused and amused, but significantly more of the latter. Jeno was sure that if it weren’t so dark in the room, he’d be able to see Jaemin grinning like a cat. “You’ve been trying to get him to kiss you for so long. This is a victory. The ship is sailing!”

“No, no, the ship is _not_ sailing. He—he only kissed me because he _had_ to.”

“Well, yes, I know,” Jaemin conceded. “But that doesn’t mean he didn’t enjoy it anyway.”

Jeno was quiet. His words came out as a whisper.

“. . . I don’t think he enjoyed it.” 

The kiss had felt heavy. And sad and fierce, as if Renjun had been trying to tell him something paramount and crushing, something he’d been keeping inside for a long long time. Jeno could only chalk it up to Renjun telling him once and for all: _I don’t want you. Not like this. I’m sorry._

“Oh please, you can’t be that terrible of a kisser,” Jaemin interrupted his train of thought. “I mean, maybe you could be, I dunno. But I’m sure he liked it though.”

“What makes you so certain?”

“He _likes_ _you_.” Jaemin shifted around in the bed until he was face to face with the other. “If there’s anything I’ve picked up from all my time working at the strip club, it’s knowledge of how attraction works. If you’re attracted to someone, chances are you’re going to enjoy kissing them. Duh.”

“Well, you don’t have to work in a strip club to know _that_.”

“Hey, apparently you needed some reminding.”

Jeno mulled that over.

“I don’t think he likes me, Jaem,” he finally said, hating the words as they passed his lips even though he was certain they were the truth. “He’s . . . so closed off. Especially whenever I try to make a move. Maybe I’m just not his type? Maybe I’m not likable enough. That’s probably it.”

“Hold on, hold on, no,” Jaemin said in a warning voice. “Do you want me to beat you over the head with this pillow?”

“Um, no?”

Jaemin’s eye roll was audible. “Okay, for starters: you know my nightlight, right.” 

Jeno was taken off guard by the sudden change in subject. “Yeah.”

“It’s crescent shaped, just like your eyes when you smile. Makes your smile really charming. I bet you don’t even notice it. You should give yourself more credit, Jeno—don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re sort of a babe.”

Jeno choked on his own spit. “You’re _joking_.”

“No, I’m not.”

His tone was so simple, so straightforward. Jeno could tell he was telling the truth. _Or, at least, what he thinks is the truth_ , he thought.

The minutes passed. Jaemin’s breathing began to even out—he was falling asleep.

“Jaemin,” Jeno whispered.

A sleepy grunt. “Yeah?”

“There’s something else I have to tell you.”

“Okay.”

Something really disturbing.”

Growing more alert now, Jaemin scooted closer. “Tell me.”

Jeno took a deep breath and lowered his voice for flair.

“Today, someone at pride called me a homophobe.”

There was a beat of silence.

Then Jaemin started giggling, the sound so contagious it filled the entire room. “God, that’s _golden_ ,” he choked out, shaking, and eventually Jeno cracked up as well.

They cackled so hard and so long that they ended up laughing themselves to sleep, in the dorky and funny way they’d done countless times growing up together. As sleep swept over Jeno, he tried to remember every bit of this moment so he could look back on it in the hard days to come. 

He had the feeling he’d need it. 

###

_A boy fumbled with a pair of chopsticks, making a frustrated noise every time they slipped from his grip. He was trying to pick up the blueberries in the clean porcelain bowl in front of him. His friend, who was in the middle of painting a new piece of art, giggled and offered him a pair of conjoined kiddie chopsticks._

_“No, Junnie,” the boy scowled, pushing the offensive offering away. “What do you take me for? A quitter?”_

_The friend grinned. Using his paintbrush, he squished one of the berries in the bowl, then spread the juice onto the canvas on the easel beside him. It was a good thing the blueberry was pseudo, or else its pulp might have messed with his artwork_ — _the falseness of the fruit helped to make its juice thinner and more applicable for painting._

_The boy with the chopsticks set them down with a wide-eyed look. “So you do think I’m a quitter!”_

_“No,” said the artist with an appeasing tone. “I don’t think that, Jen. Though if you really wanted, you could just use a fork.”_

_The boy shook his head and picked up the chopsticks again. “Forks are overrated,” he said, taking another stab at the berries. “Chopsticks have better reach, anyway.”_

###

The insufferable part about being friends with his boss was that no matter what, Jeno still had to show up to work. He couldn’t slink around and play the avoidance card the way he could when he fought with Jaemin—no, Renjun was inevitable.

Still, none of their fights had ever been this bad.

 _It’s not a fight, why are you calling it a fight?_ Jeno thought to himself as he trodded up the stairs to Renjun’s office. _Nothing happened. It was a kiss. Just a kiss._

They had had actual fights before. Like that time Jeno had pressured Renjun to enter an alliance with the Cambodian mafia, convinced it would be a profitable arrangement, only for Renjun to scoff and shut the idea down right away. A day later, they heard news that Taeyong had entered the alliance, and the Cambodian mafia was so pleased with the revenue that they were officially retracting their offer to Renjun. Said mafia boss sulked for a week over this, until there came news that the alliance had been a short-lived one and it had ended in a horrific stock market crash for both parties. Then it was Jeno’s turn to sulk. 

All of their other fights had followed the same theme: disagreements about work, which were usually resolved with one of them taking the other out for dinner or for a late-night coffee run. They had never fought over _personal_ things.

 _For the last time, it’s not a fight,_ Jeno berated himself. _And why are you calling it a personal thing? It was an impersonal kiss. A purely work-related kiss!_

“Get over it,” Donghyuck had said, at the breakfast table ten minutes ago when Jeno had shared with him the whole story of last night. “Once, I had to kiss my coworker Yeri. We were on a duo mission at some political gala and had to hide our faces at the same time. She didn’t have a problem with the kiss.” A thoughtful pause. “Neither did I.”

Mark had sputtered. “ _What?_ Hyuck!”

“It was purely work-related,” Donghyuck said, patting Mark’s hand in reassurance. “And I wasn’t dating you at the time yet, so you can stop being jelly.”

Mark exhaled, shoulders loosening up.

Then he straightened back up again, looking indignant. “Hey no, wait, I wasn’t—that wasn’t me being jealous! I just—you know, it’s not a good idea to kiss your coworkers. For any reason. That’s all.”

“Right,” Donghyuck had drawn out the word, and winked. “Good thing you’re not my coworker, then.”

Chenle had dropped down to sit across their table. He sipped his strawberry milk and cast the eldest an appraising look. “Wow, I didn’t know you could get so pink. Must be a hidden talent.” With an impish smile, he raised his milk carton. “He’s almost the same color as my drink.”

“You _guys_ ,” Jeno interrupted, trying to divert the subject of the conversation back to the issue at hand. “It’s not that Renjun is my coworker. It’s worse than that. He’s my _boss_.”

Carrying a plate stocked with a heap of croissants, Jisung had slipped into the seat beside Chenle. “What happened between you and the boss?”

Donghyuck had parted his lips to reply, but Jeno quickly slapped his hand over his friend’s mouth, already too aware that if Donghyuck told Jisung then Jisung would tell the nonet squadron and soon every employee in this godforsaken workplace would have a field day with all this gossip. Jeno cast a harried look over at the other side of the lounge room, where he could see Sana and her sisters sharing donuts, hopefully not hearing any of the six boys’ conversation. It was a small blessing that Jaemin was still fast asleep upstairs in bed and couldn’t add his own two cents to the subject. Jaemin was a hopeless gossip.

“Nothing happened.” Jeno sent his assassin friend a meaningful glare, then stood up. “I have to go to work. Because I actually have a job.”

“Jaemin and I do too,” Donghyuck pointed out. “It’s just Chensung who don’t, because they’re infants.”

“We’re _Chenji_ ,” said Chenle, at the same time that Jisung sighed, “It’s _Jichen_.”

As the table had dissolved into squabbles over which ship name was superior, Jeno had raised a hand in farewell and left the lounge room. That had been ten minutes ago. Now, as Jeno was making his way up the stairs to Renjun’s office, he sensed that he shouldn’t have had that extra cup of tea at breakfast. He felt weirdly jittery. 

He neared the top floor and squared his shoulders in front of the boss’s office door. “Don’t be nervous, Jeno,” he whispered. “It’s just Renjun.”

He raised his hand and knocked.

###

Renjun was curled up on his office couch when he heard the knock. He jolted awake, rubbing his bleary eyes and squinting at the clock. It was already nine a.m. He suppressed a groan at just how awful his head felt—like mush, yet intensely uncomfortable and heavy. It hurt to think. The bright sunshine streaming in through his window didn’t make matters any better.

“Who—who is it?”

“Um,” came the voice from outside the door. “It’s, uh, me.”

 _Fuck_ , Renjun thought, scrambling to fold up his throw blanket and hide it under the couch so Jeno wouldn’t see the evidence of him spending yet another night in his office instead of in his bedroom. Although it wasn’t like Renjun had spent a long time actually asleep; at most it had been an hour since he’d passed out. _Fuck, fuck, fuck_ —Renjun was not ready to begin the day, he was not ready to see Jeno again, not ready to deal with the consequences of last night. 

“Come in,” he called at last, after combing his hair with his hands and fixing his clothes as much as possible. This was the perk to wearing an identical outfit every day: no one could tell if he had or hadn’t changed out of yesterday’s ensemble. 

Jeno entered the office, looking wary. “Good morning.”

Renjun gave him the barest of nods. The small motion sent a wave of nausea through his body. Or maybe the sensation had something to do with the sight of Jeno himself, looking so unfairly good with his black roots showing through his blond hairdo. 

Jeno cleared his throat and shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. “I . . . uh.”

Renjun braced himself. This was it. This was the end. Jeno would tell him that the kiss had been horrible, that he wasn’t interested in men who were this bad at handling their own emotions, that he’d rather date a hog than date a guy who made a living off of extortion and filthy crime—

“I came because I was wondering if you had any assignments for me today?” Jeno finished.

Renjun balked. 

_Is he just going to . . . pretend it didn’t happen?_

“Just . . . just the usual paperwork. I’ll email it to you.”

A stretch of silence.

Jeno blew out a breath and his bangs puffed up with the force of it. “Okay, I lied. I’m not here for paperwork. I’m here to make sure you’re okay. Are you okay?”

Renjun’s fingertips tingled. “ _Am_ I okay?” he wondered, half-phrasing the question to himself. He only belatedly realized how evasive of an answer it sounded. 

“Your _head_ injury,” Jeno said, as if he couldn’t believe he was having to remind Renjun about it. “You hit your head against the ground last night. What did Kunhang say about it?”

 _No, stop,_ Renjun wanted to shout. _You can’t do this. Stop being so damn lovable, you lovable fucker._

By now Jeno was chewing his bottom lip, waiting for an answer. Renjun tore his gaze away from those lips and cleared his throat. Pointedly he reminded himself he had to play the part of the mafia boss right now—not the boy who wanted to pin Jeno against a wall and kiss him senseless.

“I have not gone to see Wong yet.”

Jeno emitted a raw noise of confusion. “ _What?_ Then what were you—what were you even doing all morning?”

“Important business,” Renjun said, crossing his arms and hoping it wasn’t too obvious that he’d woken up just two minutes ago. 

“Come on, we’re taking you down there right now.” Jeno spun on his heel and marched out of the office, boots stabbing the floor. “You better be following me. Huang Renjun you better be _following_ me!”

“I’m following you,” Renjun muttered, trailing after him. 

They took the elevator, which was supposed to be a luxury afforded only to Renjun himself, but he was for some reason having a hard time standing upright and secretly didn’t trust himself to not just keel over at the top of the staircase rather than brave the entire fifteen-minute walk. In the elevator with Jeno he held onto the railing attached to the elevator wall like a lifeline, counting the floors until they reached the infirmary wing. 

“Concussion,” said Kunhang, after inspecting the way Renjun’s pupils dilated when the doctor shined a small light onto them. “Jesus, boss, how’d you manage to knock yourself up like this?”

“Is it bad?” Jeno fretted, standing nearby. He looked like a nervous housewife. 

Kunhang considered it. “It’s not the worst case I’ve seen, but it’s bound to be a pain in his ass for the next few weeks. Nausea, light sensitivity, motion sickness . . . the symptoms will take a while to recede. He’ll have to watch his activities closely.” A wry chuckle. “Although knowing Huang, he’s not going to be very great at the whole self-care aesthetic.”

“I’m right _here_ ,” Renjun spoke up.

But the doctor and Jeno just kept talking as if he weren’t. “I’ll make sure to keep an eye on his activities,” Jeno said. “Hydration, good rest, limited exposure to bright light and loud sounds . . . I’ll make sure he does all those things.”

Kunhang pressed his lips together as if trying not to smile. “I trust you.”

“Enough of this,” Renjun said, getting up out of his chair, only for him to sway at the too-fast motion and sit right back down again. “I’m not—not a—”

“Not made out of glass,” the doctor finished. “Yes, sure, I know, heard that one before. You have to let others take care of you sometimes though, boss. You’re just as human as the rest of us. Except for maybe Mark. I still can’t believe he’s invincible, holy shacks. By the way, Jeno, how has your amnesia been behaving lately? Any triggers in the past few days?”

Jeno shuffled his feet. “Um . . . the flashbacks have been slowing down lately, but I, uh. I did have one last night?” 

Renjun didn’t miss the loaded and surreptitious look Jeno sent his way. _Last night last night last night oh God._ His cheeks flamed and he cleared his throat, averting his gaze to some corner of the room. When he snuck a look back, Jeno was just as flushed as he was.

Kunhang didn’t seem to notice the sudden change in mood of both the males in front of him. “What happened last night?” he asked Jeno.

“W—well. I was coming home from a night out in the field. On my way back, I got this flashback about me and some lake. Maybe it was a pond? I don’t really know the difference between a lake and a pond—okay anyway, I was ankle-deep in the water, it was kind of dirty, and there were some lilies—”

Renjun stiffened. 

“—and another boy was there. Something about corduroy . . . Sorry, it’s a little hazy.”

“I get it,” Kunhang said, nodding in sympathy. “I know how confusing the flashbacks can get. Still, did you manage to catch the boy’s face?”

Renjun held his breath.

“No,” came the reply. “But he sort of felt _familiar_ , you know? I get the feeling that it’s always him, that same boy, the one who appears in all of the flashbacks.”

“The one you lost?” Kunhang asked gently.

“Y—Yeah,” Jeno said, voice sounding thick all of the sudden. “It kind of hurts to think about him, though. I think he was my friend, or something.”

Renjun felt faint.

“I think I have to lie down,” he rasped.

Kunhang immediately helped him up and took him over to the closest bed. Renjun lay down atop the covers, settling into the pillow, hoping that the action of closing his eyes might ease the nausea in his gut. From the background he could hear Kunhang and Jeno speaking in hushed voices.

“I’ll check up on the deadman’s body,” Jeno said finally, and Renjun peeled his eyes open as he sensed he was being addressed. Jeno’s worried face peered back at him. “You just rest for today, okay, Renjun? I’ll take a look at your agenda and get all your meetings and phone calls taken care of. Stay here and sleep. Kunhang, can you make sure he doesn’t try to do something stupid like get up and do work?”

“Of course,” Kunhang answered.

“Alright.” Jeno’s voice faded. He was leaving. “Bye, Renjun. Sleep well.”

Renjun shut his eyes tighter, hoping unconsciousness could claim him soon. But his mind was painfully wide-awake, and it wouldn’t shut up about the flashback that Jeno had recounted—because he knew he had a painting up in his clockwork room, one that looked exactly like the lily pond that Jeno had just described. 

###

Jaemin had accidentally locked himself in the industrial-sized, walk-in refrigerator.

And typically he wouldn’t have had much of a problem with that, considering how fun it is to explore the fridge and all of Renjun’s notoriously bountiful non-pseudo groceries, but the issue was that he was locked in here with _Donghyuck_ , and it’d been three hours and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could take it.

“I just wanted you to make me a snack,” Donghyuck said, for the fifth time. “That’s why I followed you in here. I didn’t know the door had a self-locking mechanism. What a dumb idea. Who even designed that shit?”

Beside him, Mark stopped by a shelf full of exotic-looking vegetables. The reason why he was here was because he just went wherever Donghyuck went. It was both endearing and unsurprising. “Hey, do you think Renjun has watermelons in this place?”

Jaemin sent him a dry look. “He probably has a watermelon _farm_ in this place.”

Mark’s eyes lit up. “Ooh, that sounds fun.” He picked up one of the exotic-looking vegetables, sniffed it experimentally, and set it back down. “I wonder if we can tunnel out through the floor? You know. Dig through the floor with spoons, or stuff.”

“I’m sorry, Mark, but that’s like the lamest idea you’ve ever come up with,” Donghyuck said matter-of-factly. Mark sent him a hurt look and the younger quickly came over to latch onto Mark’s arm. “I didn’t mean it.”

“But you did, though,” Jaemin pointed out.

“So what if I did?” Donghyuck retorted, hugging Mark’s arm tighter. “Wow, you’re really warm.”

“It’s the mod,” Mark said sheepishly. “I think it’s keeping my body temperature up.”

Jaemin turned away, setting his hands on his hips and scanning the room around him for an escape route. He couldn’t see much beyond the crates of various fruit juices that were stacked in front of him. _Jesus, the juices are alphabetized,_ he thought, not sure how it was that he never ceased to be amazed by Renjun’s sheer opulence. Jaemin had texted Jeno an hour ago that he was stuck in the fridge, but there had been no response. He felt in his back pocket for his holo-phone to check if this area gave off any better wifi than the last, but unfortunately, he still had zero bars. _Who even builds a fridge without wifi in it?_ Jaemin thought, before noticing how ridiculous of a question that was.

“You know, Nana,” Donghyuck said, “if I were as good a chef as you, I’d consider going into the guild biz.”

Jaemin turned to him, raising his eyebrows at the sight of the assassin hanging onto Mark’s side and looking for all the world like a koala. No one would have guessed he was a killer. “What do you mean by that?”

“Well, you know, I always slip cyanide into people’s _drinks_ , like their wine and stuff, but it’d be much more pleasant if I could just give them a tray of spiked cupcakes and—”

Jaemin gasped. “That’s barbaric. Especially if it’s cupcakes, which are meant to be wholesome and cute. I bake the cutest cupcakes. Come on, I thought you were better than that, Hyuck.”

At that, both Mark and Donghyuck bristled and spoke up at the same time.

“Only I’m allowed to call him—”

“Only Mark’s allowed to call me—”

They both fell silent when they realized they were speaking over one another. Donghyuck gave the older a curious, delighted look.

“What were you saying just now?”

“Nothing,” Mark said, beet-red as the juices in the crate beside him. He coughed into his fist.

“Oh please,” Jaemin said. “Just kiss each other already.”

Abruptly Mark made a strangled noise and wrenched away from Donghyuck as if he’d been burned. Donghyuck pouted for a moment, then turned an accusing gaze on Jaemin.

Jaemin knew that look. He immediately took off running.

“Get back here, Na!” shouted the assassin, giving chase. “You lousy excuse for a best friend! You know Mark’s not ready for that kind of teasing!”

“Who said we were friends?” Jaemin careened around a wall stocked with cheeses that were white, yellow, and orange. “I don’t wanna be your friend, you cupcake-abuser!”

“I’ve never abused any cupcakes! Not like the way you just abused Mark!”

“I didn’t even do anything, and holy Jesus are you calling him a _cupcake_ —”

Donghyuck ran faster. Jaemin ended up being chased around the entirety of the refrigerator and winding back up at the main door, where he put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Donghyuck and Mark arrived soon after, the former looking entirely out of shape and no longer bent on throttling Jaemin.

“Jaem, are you sure your wifi still isn’t working?” panted Mark.

Jaemin checked his phone, then sighed. “Yeah.”

Donghyuck groaned, reaching over and jiggling the knob on the fridge’s door. “Anyone out there?” he shouted. “Jeno? Chenle? Or that mousy beanpole boyfriend of his? Anyone?”

Mark looked defeated. “Maybe we can find a hidden exit somewhere in this place?”

All of the sudden, the fridge door slammed open, revealing a tall and ferocious-looking stranger standing on the threshold. Jaemin stumbled backward. “I heard voices,” the man said, his eyes hungry as they roved the scene in front of him. “Is this where Huang’s keeping his secret deadman collection?”

“No sir, no deadmen here, sir,” Mark all but squeaked. 

A second later, a blonde woman, one of the younger sisters out of the nine, burst into the fridge looking disheveled as if she’d sprinted here. Her eyes landed on Mark. “Mark! Quick, you have to hide, there’s a rival mafia boss in the mansion who suspects you’re alive and he’s going around looking for—oh.” Her eyes were wide as she noticed the mentioned mafia boss. “Uh. Too late, I guess.”

“I knew it,” Taeyong said, facing Mark triumphantly. “You! You’re not alive, _are_ you?”

“Dahyun, how did this intruder get past the front door?” Jaemin demanded, knowing the blonde was the mansion’s doorkeeper in lieu of Jisung when the kid was occupied with school.

“I know,” she groaned, reaching into her skirt compartment and pulling out a pair of nunchucks. “Huang’s going to be so pissed with me. I already called Xiao and my sisters for backup, they should be coming soon.”

“ _Mark Lee_ , is it?” Taeyong said, his eyes running over Mark in a calculating way. “I’ve heard of you. You’re the brother of Renjun’s lieutenant, the one I met at that summit last year. I didn’t know you were a _deadman_.”

“Uhhh,” Mark said, scooting closer to Donghyuck, who seemingly instinctively placed himself in front of the older. “Quick, Hyuck, throw some cyanide at him or something, he doesn’t look incredibly nice.”

Taeyong snorted. “Not being incredibly nice is my literal _job_.”

“Well, Mark’s incredibly alive, asshole,” Donghyuck shot back. “What do you want from us? Why are you here?”

“Exactly my question,” interjected Dahyun.

Taeyong eyed her brandished nunchucks. “Put those puny things away. I could disarm you in my sleep, little girl.”

Dahyun let out a war cry and charged. It was at that very coincidental moment that the fridge door flew open once more and in flooded eight different girls, all looking various states of murderous. Taeyong startled, taken aback by how quickly his opponent count had multiplied, and before long two of the sisters had rushed him and cuffed his hands behind his back. Their eldest Nayeon stepped up behind him and swiftly slipped her nunchucks around his neck, holding the chain taut against his throat.

“Lee, you being here is a violation of clause three hundred forty-three of the mafia handbook,” she said in a cold voice. “The clause details that the breaking and entering of the private property of your business rivals is uncordial and strictly ill behavior.”

“I tried to make an appointment ahead of time,” Taeyong countered, sounding somewhat strained but otherwise remarkably level-toned for someone who was currently halfway to suffocation. “You laying a hand on me is a violation of clause eighty-nine for nonphysical diplomacy.”

“Diplomacy my ass,” Nayeon said. “You’re a sexist pig and you insulted my sister. Dubu, please get Jeno down here so he can have a word with this filthy-mouthed slimeball.”

“All I called her was a little girl—”

“Save it,” Nayeon growled, tightening the nunchucks. “Are you here with anyone else? Bring any of your annoying pubescent sidekicks?”

“Get your hands off me and maybe I’ll talk—”

Jaemin thought even for Taeyong, it was a less than intelligent idea to talk back to the woman who had the literal capability to end your life at any moment. Especially since Nayeon looked like she was itching to watch the light fade out of his eyes. Jaemin coughed and spoke up, “Uh, okay, sorry but could we maybe tone it down a little until Jeno or Huang get here to sort stuff out?”

“Oh, _Lee Jeno_ ,” Taeyong said, eyes flaring wide. “Huang’s right-hand man. Pah. _My_ right-hand man could dance circles around that sorry excuse for a lieutenant. Look, I’m absolutely certain he’s the little dipshit who sabotaged my business arrangement with the Cambodian mafia—”

All of the sudden there was a loud crack and Taeyong fell silent. His eyes rolled up in his head and his entire body went limp. The sisters didn’t bother holding him upright, just stepping back and watching with distaste as he toppled to the ground. 

Behind his body stood Mark, who lowered the watermelon that he’d been holding above his head.

“No one insults my little brother,” he said, wearing one of the most serious faces Jaemin had ever seen him use. The same face he wore whenever the kids at school had picked on Jeno or Chenle for not having parents or for being poor. _Ah, Mark_ , Jaemin thought, gazing upon the older boy, _they might have wiped your memories but you are still the same._

Smiling, Nayeon spoke up.

“Nice move, Lee, but I’m not sure that clubbing a mafia leader over the head with a melon is permitted in the handbook.”

Mark shrugged and set the fruit back down into the nearby basket where he’d taken it. Apparently Renjun did stock watermelons. “Yeah. Can’t say I’m sorry, though. You know how it is.”

“I know how it is,” Nayeon agreed, and the two shared a nod that could only pass between the shared experience of being eldest siblings. 

Jaemin ran a hand against the back of his neck. “Can you ladies help us take this intruder guy up to Renjun’s office? I think this is a matter for the boss to deal with.”

As the sisters moved to obey, Donghyuck sidled up to Mark and wrapped him in a hug. Mark smiled and murmured something, his hand coming up to rub Donghyuck’s back.

Jaemin turned away, hiding his smile.

 _Soon_ , he thought. _They’re bound to get together soon._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yas we finally got a noren kiss! Finally! And it only took 100k words! I’m #crying in the club
> 
> Renjun's new complex purple-blond hair here is ofc inspired by his hair in Ridin'
> 
> This chapter was pleasantly easier to write than normal ... not that the flow doesn’t typically come easily, especially since we’re so far into the fic that i know the world and characters and plot so well, but. hoo boi sometimes it just takes so much brainpower to write 11k weekly. Like bro this shit aint fácil. 
> 
> I think I'll write a markhyuck spin-off where we get their backstories of like, how they first met and fell in love and all that stuff before Mark's untimely death? If u want it let me knowwww~
> 
> ~ Yerin 051020


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whoever was my 127th kudo, ily. 127 squad amiright
> 
> Aaand this chapter is unbetaed! But I proofread a ton so it should be legible. quiet DOWN, anxiety of mine.

Renjun’s headache was not letting up. 

It certainly wasn’t getting any better with the surprise appearance of a cranky, brooding mafia leader who had just arrived in his mansion to confront him about deadmen. Renjun had had enough of deadmen for three lifetimes and then some, and he wasn’t exactly sure how it was that he’d gotten so tired of a subject as interest-piquing as real-life zombies.

“Leave him alone,” hissed Jeno from the other side of the door. Renjun imagined him with hands on hips, his brows drawn low as he faced off Lee Taeyong, one of the most frightening men in the world. “You’re not allowed to enter. I have no idea how you even got past Dahyun.”

“I don’t believe that Huang’s asleep in there. I thought he made it a habit of surviving off two hours of sleep every day.”

“The boss is taking a vacation right now.”

“Ha, if you think I’m leaving this property without talking to Huang first, you are so pathetically mistaken. At the very least, I deserve compensation for the very possible concussion I may have just sustained from his employee’s _watermelon_.”

There was a scuffle, as if Taeyong had made for the door but Jeno had shoved him back. 

“The boss has a worse concussion than you could ever imagine with that melon-sized brain of yours.”

“Melons are quite large, I’m complimented.”

Renjun winced. Leave it to Jeno to try to insult someone’s brain size, only for it to backfire.

Aside from that, he wasn’t sure why Jeno was acting so out of character. Jeno usually hated confrontation and let Renjun handle all the official haggling and harsh-heartedness—he never imagined he’d see the day that Jeno stood up to someone like Taeyong, whom Jeno himself had said on multiple occasions was “scary as fuck” and “probably ate babies for breakfast or something.” 

A small devil materialized atop Renjun’s shoulder. _He’s standing up for you_ , it whispered. _He’s standing up to Taeyong for you because he cares about you and loves you and_ —

Renjun kicked the small devil away and climbed off his bed. Kunhang, on the other side of the infirmary, looked up from his book at the motion and quickly took off his headphones. “Boss, what are you—”

Renjun waved him off and went to the door. When he opened it, Taeyong was planted there, red-faced and glowering, with Jeno facing him, arms crossed and chin raised. It seemed the two were having a stare-off. As soon as Jeno noticed Renjun, he dropped his arms to his sides and looked momentarily sheepish.

“You’re up.”

“Explain, Jen,” Renjun sighed, jerking his chin at Taeyong, whose eyebrows shot up at the nickname. Renjun couldn’t bring himself to care. Jen was one less syllable than Jeno, and judging by how Renjun’s head throbbed viciously with every word he spoke, he knew it was rationally beneficial to shorten Jeno’s name.

“Go lie back down,” Jeno said, putting his serious face back on again. “You need to rest. Where is Kunhang?”

“Right here,” piped up the doctor, popping up by Renjun’s elbow. “Whoa. Is that Lee Taeyong?”

“ _That_ is,” Taeyong groused. “Now if you would please allow me a private conversation with your boss—”

“The girls should have booted you while you were still out cold,” Jeno said, wrinkling his nose at the older. 

“That is the last breach of manners I’m going to tolerate from you, boy.”

“Ha! I’m just as much of an adult as you are. Don’t even act like you didn’t call Dahyun a little girl—you need a pair of glasses if you’re going to be so blind to your own rudeness. And Renjun, what are you still doing here? Please go lie back down, you need to _rest_ —”

Renjun interrupted. “Don’t be an idiot. Lee came all this way, I might as well be polite and hear what he has to say.”

A muscle in Jeno’s jaw twitched, but he bowed his head and stood aside. Taeyong padded into the infirmary. Kunhang tried to object, but eventually gave in and quietly closed the door on his way out. Renjun sank into the doctor’s vacant swivel chair and rubbed his temples.

“Okay, Lee,” he exhaled, “what do you want?”

“I saw your deadman,” Taeyong said, without preamble.

That was a jolt. Even after Renjun smoothed his face back into its placid facade, the gleam in Taeyong’s eyes showed the older hadn’t missed the hiccup.

“I went hunting last night and obtained a deadman, indeed,” renjun said. “It’s quite battered, though, and very much deceased by now.”

“Not that one. I don’t even want to talk about why you’re hunting deadmen as if they were tame parrots—no, what I _meant_ was that Mark Lee figure.”

“You’re mistaken,” Renjun said, waving a hand. “Mark Lee died last summer. Don’t you remember? I explained this whole thing to you at that summit.”

“If he died last summer, then why did I see him standing in your refrigerator walking and talking?” Taeyong demanded. 

Renjun gave an easy shrug. “You must be delusional. I would recommend cutting back on the recreational drug use, I hear that pseudo-hallucinogens are actually quite detrimental to one’s mental health—”

Taeyong interrupted, just as Renjun knew he would. “Cut the bullshit, Huang. I want answers. I have a right to know if you’ve been secretly in kahoots with the feds this whole time.”

At that, Renjun blinked. “Excuse me? Me? The _federals_? Why would you even think—”

“What am I supposed to think, Huang,” Taeyong all but groaned. “The government’s the know-all for Operation Phoenix and you’ve got one of its playthings in your basement. I haven’t seen much of what a deadman is supposed to look like, but _that_ one looked remarkably human. What the fuck is going on, Huang? What are you hiding?”

Renjun crossed his legs, channeling all of his inner professionalism. He had nothing to lose from explaining the situation to Taeyong, did he? “Mark is a special case. He’s a deadman, but he has a modification that revived him, and that's why he appears so outwardly normal.”

Taeyong’s eyes had been large to begin with, as a component of his anime poster boy face, but after Renjun’s explanation his eyes went impossibly wider. “Black magic,” he breathed.

Renjun tut-tutted. “It’s science, not necromancy, don’t get too excited.”

“Hold up. Hold the fuck up. You mean to say that— _that thing_ I saw in the refrigerator is a person brought back, fully intact, from the dead?”

“Yes.” Renjun’s headache pulsed again, courtesy of the hornet’s nest resting within his skull. “If that’s all, it would be much appreciated if you departed—”

“No, no, _no_ ,” Taeyong said. “I’m not leaving. Not without your word that you’ll destroy that monster.”

Renjun gave him a judgemental look. “Now, why would I destroy the biggest miracle of science known to mankind?” 

“It’s not a miracle, it’s a curse,” Taeyong said. “Don’t you get it?”

When Renjun didn’t answer, he barrelled on. “Imagine if word got out that it’s possible to resurrect the dead. Do you even have any idea what that sort of revelation would trigger? Society would be reduced to lathering bloodhounds bent on reviving their loved ones. _Everyone_ has deceased loved ones. People would stop at nothing to get them back—every mother and father and orphan will be swarming each and every science facility in the country in hopes of getting their hands on a mod and some radiation. And if they can’t pay for it? They’ll resort to violence. You can forget about peaceful cremations. No one will want to bury or burn their dead. Not before hijacking Operation Phoenix and using it for their own good.” Taeyong shook his head in fervency. “If word got out about Mark, it would crumble the whole globe into the worst fucking discord since World War IX.”

“Nothing—nothing could top World War IX,” Renjun said, although he wasn’t sure he believed it.

“You must have plans to destroy Mark. You do. Right?”

Renjun swallowed. “As long as he stays well-hidden from the public, it’ll be fine. Disaster averted.”

“ _Disaster not averted_ ,” Taeyong hissed, accentuating each word. “Mark—that person—that _creature_ is a liability. I don’t want the world to crumble, Huang. I don’t want that shit. Not when I’ve sacrificed everything to get to where I am.”

Renjun's gaze was cold. “I have sacrificed just as much as you have, Lee. We’re not so different.”

Taeyong exhaled and leaned back. “Exactly. And that is why I think you’ll understand me when I say that Mark has to go.”

There was a tap on the door. 

“Renjun?” It was Jeno. “Are you almost done in there? I’m waiting.”

Renjun chewed his lower lip. He couldn’t imagine the thought of Jeno losing his older brother again. Not when he’d already lost him once.

“The process would be tricky,” Taeyong said, bringing his attention back again. “I don’t know how you’d go about destroying him, especially with the mod in the way, but maybe you could blow him up? Huang? Are you listening to me?”

Renjun blew out a heavy breath through his nose and was silent.

“You . . . you don’t want to do it,” Taeyong said, slowly, in shock. “You don’t want to destroy it.”

“It’s not an it,” Renjun snapped, turning back to him. “Mark’s a person.”

Taeyong threw up his hands. “So? Murder is nothing new to either of us. You can’t seriously be thinking of sparing Mark’s life for the sake of—of— _sentiment_.”

“So what if I am?” Renjun said. “What are you going to do about it?”  
It was the wrong thing to say. He should have known better.

There was a moment of contemplative silence from the older male, until he finally spoke.

“I’ll get you in stripes.” The words were like a sledgehammer. “If you don’t destroy Mark, I’ll make sure you go striped.”

“ _No_ ,” Renjun whispered.

Stripes were not to be taken lightly. Stripes were an ultimatum. A euphemism, for the darkest fate known to that of criminals: capture, at the hands of the government, a destiny of rotting behind bars in a prisoner’s slacks. At this point in his life, Renjun’s sentence would be at least eight consecutive lifetimes.

“Don’t underestimate me,” Taeyong warned. 

“Traitor. Fucking—” Renjun shook his head. “ _Fuck you_.”

It was one thing for a criminal to land themselves in prison. It was another thing for them to be sold out to the law, and another thing _entirely_ for the betrayal to be committed by one of your own kind. Not that Renjun considered Taeyong his ally, but—they were made of the same stuff. They’d both been kicked and beaten by the contempire until they’d finally risen far up enough to rule it right back. No matter how much he and Taeyong hated each other, Renjun had never expected him to take it this far.

“I’m not bluffing,” Taeyong added, as if it hadn’t already been painstakingly clear from the start. “Do what I tell you to, and you’ll walk free. Don’t, and suffer.” 

There was another persistent knock on the door. “Renjun? Is everything alright in there?”

“Yes, yes,” Renjun called back, trying his best not to sound harried. “Just give us one more minute.”

“You heard what I said,” Taeyong said, backing up toward the door. It was a clear indication that he had said and done all that he’d come for. “Stripes, Huang. Stripes.” His hand rested on the doorknob.

The knocking grew louder. “Renjun, it’s been six minutes.”

“Ugh, why is your loot so protective over you?” Taeyong muttered. “Standing in front of the door like a damn guard dog.”

Renjun raised an eyebrow at the change in topic. “Don’t tell me Jung wouldn’t do the same for you.”

“Jung’s not my loot.”

“No. He’s something different.”

The implication was thick. Taeyong’s expression slid entirely off his face and he stared, blank in speechlessness..

“I . . . Wow.”

“Wow what?”

“I just didn’t know you had it in you, Huang.” 

Renjun sneered. “Just as I didn’t think you’d have it in you to break into my mansion and harass my employees. I expect a formal apology to Dahyun and her sisters.”

“The watermelon—”

“You deserved the watermelon.”

Taeyong’s scowl was back; it looked like it might split his flawless face in half. “Don’t forget what I said, Huang. I’ll expect emailed evidence of the destruction of the deadman you’re keeping sequestered. If I don’t get evidence . . .” He paused meaningfully.

“Yes, I know,” Renjun muttered. “Now leave.”

“I’m thinking the feds would be _very_ pleased with me if I turned you in drugged and cuffed at their doorstep. The great Huang Renjun, snared.”

Renjun’s gaze crackled. “Leave.”

Taeyong raised his hands in a patronizing gesture that made Renjun’s chest throb with anger one last time before the older was heading out the door, slipping past Jeno and Kunhang without so much as a backward glance. Jeno spent a good five seconds glaring at his receding figure before turning to Renjun.

“Everything okay?”

His open tone of concern was what pushed Renjun over the edge. His shoulders sagged, his head felt light, and he moved to lie down on one of the infirmary beds. “Yeah.” His voice sounded far away, even to himself. “Everything’s fine.”

“Back to sleep you go, then!” Kunhang huffed, sweeping back into the infirmary. “The gall of that Taeyong. Kicking me out of my own domain. What a heathen.”

“You call everyone a heathen,” Jeno said, sounding once again openly affectionate, and Renjun feels a sudden new and nauseating flurry of worries he definitely didn’t need right now: _is Jeno just nice to everyone? Jeno is a nice person. Jeno probably isn’t any nicer to me than he is to anybody else. And he’s still good to me even though_ — _even though I_ —

Renjun let out a tiny noise equal parts frustration and desire as he remembers Jeno’s lips moving on his in that alleyway. He had to focus on Taeyong’s threats, not on stolen kisses, my God.

“Boss?” Kunhang spoke up, sounding wary. “You okay?”

“What did Lee Taeyong want?” Jeno added.

The lie came out swift. “Nothing. Mainly he wanted compensation for the watermelon incident.”

“Oh. Really? Well, he deserved the watermelon.”

Renjun smiled, just a little. “That’s what I told him too.”

Soon after, Kunhang shooed Jeno off, and he reluctantly left with promises to visit again in the evening. Renjun closed his eyes and lay in bed, thinking in circles again and again about striped slacks and cell bars. 

###

A week and a half went by after the Taeyong incident, and Jeno still didn’t know what had transpired in the infirmary. Renjun didn’t make a big deal out of it, so Jeno decided he wouldn’t either. 

Jaemin kept nagging him about the kiss, asking him day and night if Jeno had tried to make a move on Renjun yet. 

“Why won’t you just _do_ something, Jeno?” Jaemin groaned, as they were sharing cupcakes in their bedroom late at night. He had just come home from work and his exhaustion was evident in the way his body moved: slowly, as if wading through pudding. “Have you guys even, like, brought the kiss _up_? Even in passing?”

Jeno shook his head. So far, Renjun had been acting as if it had never happened, and Jeno had been more than pleased to play along. Sometimes, like when they were hanging out and chilling as friends, it was easy to forget that the kiss had even happened. 

“Why the hell haven’t you brought it up?” Jaemin said.

“Well, after he had a concussion, I didn’t really want to. . . . Like, what if it made him stressed, or something?”

Jaemin smacked Jeno’s knee. “You idiotic _muffinhead_. You’re already plenty stressed about this yourself! There’s no reason why you two can’t be stressed together. The lack of communication is probably only making things worse, you know.”

“I don’t. I don’t know,” Jeno said, drawing his knees up to his chest, partly so he could feel small and partly so Jaemin wouldn’t hit him again. “I don’t want to lose him, that’s all. I like us being chill friends.” He stuffed the rest of the cupcake in his mouth, crumpled the wrapper up in his fist.

“What is there to be _afraid_ of?”

“Well because a romance with a mafia leader is always so goddamn problem-free, isn’t it?”

Jaemin squinted at him. “You’re . . . you’re just afraid of him breaking your heart, aren’t you.”

“No. That is incorrect,” Jeno mumbled through a full mouth, which probably just made him even more obvious. He always mumbled when he wasn’t telling the truth.

“If he breaks your heart, I’ll break his knees,” Jaemin declared.

“I don’t think he’d appreciate that though. He’d probably sue you.”

“I’d sue him right back. If you haven’t noticed, I’m rich now. And for God’s sake, please stop choking that poor cupcake wrapper,” Jaemin said, reaching forward and prying the wrapper out of Jeno’s fist so he could chuck it basketball-style in the trash can. “You don’t really think Renjun would break your heart, do you? I bet he’d buy you the stars if you asked.”

Jeno stared at him. “What is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Okay. You know what? I’m done with you.” Jaemin sat down on the bed and leaned back, hands digging into the comforter so he could pull it around himself. He disappeared into it, drawing the cocoon tight. “Find some other best friend to talk about your love life with, this one is over it.”

Jeno laughed down at the Jaemin-sized blanket burrito. When he unravelled it he found him curled up in a ball, eyes shut and head tucked between his knees, body as flexible as ever. “Jaem, get up, you haven’t even brushed your teeth yet.”

“I’m too tired.”

“It’ll only take two minutes.”

“No, you have to factor in the commute. It’ll be at least three minutes total.”

When they’d both brushed and were finally lying in bed side-by-side, Jeno’s mind doing lazy circular reruns of today’s mundane events, he rolled over and thought about bringing up Renjun again. Even though Jaemin liked to fuss, he always indulged him when he wanted to talk about Renjun. Maybe it was that Jaemin knew this was all new territory; in the entire time they’d known each other, Jeno had only ever entertained minor crushes.

But it seemed like tonight, the time for gossip was over. Jaemin was already fast asleep, limp as a noodle with his serene face squished against the pillow. Jeno knew that working at the club was actually more strenuous than Jaemin let on. He had tried to explain it once: _work makes my hips and face hurt, because they’re supposed to be sexy all the fucking time and that’s pretty damn tough to do._

“Hmm. _Some_ people are just naturally sexy all the time, though,” Donghyuck had said, making eyes at Mark.

“Let’s keep it PG-13, lads,” Chenle had interrupted, before Mark could spontaneously combust from blushing too hard. 

The next morning, Jeno checked his electronic calendar for today’s assignments only to realize with a small shock that his boss had wiped the agenda clean. Jeno scrolled further and found that all of the events for today and the weekend had been pushed back until next Wednesday, giving them an unprecedented bulk of free space. 

It wasn’t like Renjun to randomly do something like this.

“Ugh, I planned his agenda down to the _minute_ ,” Jeno huffed, knowing that the change in scheduling would mean that they’d have an ocean of catchup work on Wednesday. “Why would he mess it all up?”

When Jeno confronted him, Renjun answered, “There’s a party I have to attend.”

Jeno’s jaw positively dropped. “A what?”

“Don’t look at me like that, I’m a twenty-year-old too,” Renjun sniffed, rolled his eyes. “. . . Not that it’s a party for leisure or anything. It’d best be described as a political gala. The nation’s biggest relevant social gathering for all the important people this country has to offer. It’s held on the ides of April every year.”

 _The ides of April_ , Jeno considered. _Oh, that’s tomorrow._

“I remember Donghyuck saying something about going to these sorts of things,” he said, slowly. “But . . . I think he went as an assassin, not as a guest. He probably didn’t have an invitation or anything.”

“Yes.” With a small smile, Renjun tilted his head and reached into his pocket to pull out a beige card of thick cardstock. “But you see, I have an invitation.”

“Ah.” Jeno stared at the card. The fact that it was a physical piece of paper spoke volumes for the kind of party this was—most of the time, these things were sent by email or pigeon carrier. “So this is like a summit, but . . . fancier?”

“Yes, except it’s different from a summit in that it’s not as exclusive. Legitimate political figures attend the party as well. The host has a foot in both the fed world and crime world, and it makes for a very interesting night, especially when the good guys are entirely unaware that they’re sharing cocktails and dancing the foxtrot with the bad guys.”

“There’s dancing?” Jeno laughed as he tried to conceive the idea of Renjun waltzing across a ballroom floor. “Can you dance?”

“I am insulted. Of course I can. But that’s not all.” Renjun flicked his wrist as if doing a magic trick, and the second identical card slid out from behind the first. “The host is always _so_ cordial about allowing admission of a plus one.”

Jeno’s pulse quickened. He wet his lips. “I . . . Am I your plus one?”

Renjun nodded. 

Jeno’s fingertips and toes and nose tingled. His smile quickly fell when Renjun continued.

“You and Haechan. Except he’s going to be going as an assassin, I’m afraid. I’ve already contacted the guild and booked his services for tomorrow night—furthermore, I’m paying him a generous amount, higher than his usual wage, so he’ll have absolutely nothing to complain about. If he’s lucky, he’ll even get to try a cocktail himself.”

“All three of us are underage, Renjun.”

“And we’re also all serial lawbreakers,” Renjun said, with a shrug. “I expect to consume a fair amount of alcohol tomorrow night, and the hangover I’ll sustain is precisely the reason why I cleared our Sunday schedule.”

Jeno whistled. “Sounds like you have experience being hungover.”

“Would you believe me if I said I did?”

“Of course I would,” Jeno said. “You probably have tons of experience with everything.” _Drinking. Kissing people like it’s nothing. God, just look at him, he’s so pretty, there’s no way he’s a virgin._

Renjun narrowed his eyes. “Why do I sense a negative connotation there somewhere?”

“There was no connotation,” Jeno said, with a straight face, trying hard not to think about how he had just thought the word _virgin_ in Renjun’s presence. “Okay, so today’s Friday, the gala’s tomorrow, and you took Sunday off as a precaution. Doesn’t explain why you erased our schedule for today. Unless today’s like, prep day? Do I need a prep day tutorial for how to behave in front of important members of politics?”

“Not a tutorial.” Renjun squared his shoulders. “Today, my faithful lieutenant, we are going shopping.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were in the back of Byeongkwan’s limousine on their way to one of the largest shopping malls in Los Angeles. Renjun idly messed with his phone before Jeno sighed, reached over, and pushed it into Renjun’s lap.

“No electronics, until your concussion is all better,” he said, eyebrows drawn.

Renjun set his phone underneath his thigh to prevent Jeno from snatching it the way he’d done at least three times in the past week. “Wong says the healing process should be nearly over by now.”

“Yeah, well, Wong also said it wasn’t a fabulous idea to go marching about in broad daylight,” Jeno said, gesturing out the window, where the noon sun was beating down upon the city. “You’ve got light sensitivity, remember?”

Renjun reached down into a compartment in the car door and took out a silken pouch. From it he withdrew a set of formidable-looking shades, then slipped them on and gave Jeno an unimpressed look. “There. Happy?”

“Very.” Jeno settled back into his seat.

He heard the echo of Jaemin’s voice, nagging to _just do something_. So, before he could chicken out, he blurted, “But I can’t see your pretty eyes now, so I guess it’s a win-lose situation.”

From up from, Byeongkwan choked. Jeno guessed the chauffeur didn’t have much experience with hearing people flirt with his boss. 

Once they were at the mall, Jeno fought the urge to hover too close to Renjun. There were people everywhere, more of a crowd than Jeno was comfortable with, and it didn’t make things better that he noticed some curious gazes.

“Should we . . .” He cleared his throat. “Should we have dressed in something less conspicuous?”

Renjun led the way down the hall. “You’d be conspicuous no matter what,” he said absently. “What with that face of yours.”

“Is there something on my face?” 

“What?” Renjun glanced over, eyes hidden behind sunglasses. “No. I just—never mind.”

They reached a wall full of escalators which extended upward into the multiple other stories of the mall. Escalators were old-fashioned, but quaint in a vintage sort of way. Renjun stopped in front of the arches and put his hands on his hips. 

“I think it’s this one,” he said, rubbing his chin.

“You think what’s what one?” Jeno asked.

“It’s a fifty-fifty guess, at least. I always have such a hard time remembering.” Renjun reached up to place a palm on the wall and moved his hand down its surface, brows drawn in concentration.

Jeno stared at him, utterly speechless. “Um, okay, the concussion has clearly addled your brains,” he began, looking around to ascertain that no one around them was noticing this strange guy feeling up the wall.

“Ever heard of that ancient book?” Renjun said. “The one with the witches and wizards? There’s a train station between platforms 9 and 10. That’s sort of like what this is.” He prodded experimentally at a patch of wall and smiled. “Yes, it’s here.”

“ _Harry Potter_?” Jeno said. His little brother had read that book like a Bible back in elementary school. 

Renjun pushed into the wall with the heel of his hand and, with a whine, the wall began to _move_. What had initially appeared an unassuming block of concrete revealed itself to be complex clockwork mechanisms that fit together in a network of cogs and gears. Eventually a man-sized archway had formed, revealing a staircase down a well-lit tunnel.

“Quick, before someone sees us,” Renjun said, ducking into the tunnel. 

Jeno hurried to follow. The clockwork wall sealed back in place after him. “Does every mall have one of these—these villain lairs?”

“They’re not lairs. Hidden clockwork rooms are fairly common, at least among people who keep secrets and are rich enough to afford these sorts of facades. We’re going to visit an acquaintance of mine.”

He didn’t seem interested in explaining more. Briefly Jeno contemplated feeling nervous, but with Renjun at his side, it was hard to feel unsafe.

When they finally stepped off the lengthy staircase, it was into a large, spacious room that looked every bit an overpriced clothing boutique. The wallpaper was made of velvet, and scintillating light fixtures bobbed from the ceiling in various innovative spheres. Elegant racks of suits, blouses, skirts, and ambiguous articles of clothing were arranged in tasteful fashion, showing off a decent amount of the store’s selection without coming across as overwhelming. The mannequins, sculpted with unreasonably attractive proportions, looked like they were made of crystal, their blank faces gleaming at Jeno.

There was no one else in the boutique. 

As if he’d been here a thousand times, Renjun confidently made his way forward to the front desk, which was unmanned. 

Jeno was unable to keep himself from brushing a finger against the closest mannequin’s dress. It looked stiff enough to be made of glass, but was actually silky to the touch. “Oh my God.”

“Jiyoung?” Renjun called. “You here?”

An answering shout came, “Yes! I’m here!” and a harried-looking young woman emerged from one of the storage closets behind the front desk. Breathless, she fixed her messy, teal-dyed hair, which was tied back in a perky ponytail. She placed her elbows on the front desk and smiled at Renjun. “Ah, Huang. Welcome back! Is it the gala season already? Should’ve known you’d show your face sometime about now. You make it a point to wear a different suit each year, don’t you?”

Renjun gave a shrug of admittance. “It’s a good habit to get into.”

“An expensive habit,” Jiyoung said, although she didn’t seem displeased at all by that fact. “Who’s your colleague here?”

After Renjun introduced him and explained they were looking for something for him to wear to the gala, Jeno could almost see the gears turning in her head as she calculated his measurements with the eye of a person who knew her trade well. 

“Okay,” she said finally. “Is there anything you specifically want to see on him?”

The question was addressed to Renjun. She wore a small, inquisitive smile. Jeno couldn’t fathom why.

“He . . . uh, he looks good in black,” Renjun mumbled, and Jiyoung’s smile widened. 

“Alright!” she chirped, and took Jeno’s elbow to guide him away.

With each new item Jeno tried on, he began to realize why exactly Jiyoung’s boutique needed to be so concealed from the public. Each article of clothing was expertly tailored to include well-hidden pockets for weapons that would be difficult to explain to a pedestrian. A gun-shaped holster against the inner lining of a satin jacket, a knife-holding slit sewed into the calf of a pair of pants . . . even the neckties were designed so that when tied, no one would notice the space for a hidden microphone tucked into the fabric’s knot. 

“Nothing?” Renjun said, after an hour had passed and Jeno’s rack of discarded items was near bursting. Jiyoung was forcibly cheerful, not losing her spirit even when Jeno apologized for the eighth time for how this was taking so long. “Maybe you should just wear a dress,” Renjun mused.

“Maybe,” Jeno sighed, casting a contemplative look over at the glittering gowns. Inwardly, he laughed a little at the thought of himself trying to fit into one of those bodices. “You think I could pull one off?”

“Jeno, you could dress in a garbage bag and still look the same as you always do.”

Jeno placed a hand on his heart in mock hurt. “Are you telling me I always look trashy?”

“What? _No_ ,” Renjun said. “No. You just—okay, never mind.”

“He’s trying to tell you that you’d look radiant in just about anything,” Jiyoung said in a stage whisper. Renjun pointedly ignored her. 

“I don’t recall radiant being his choice of words,” Jeno mumbled, as she placed a new slinky black garment into his arms and pushed him into the fitting room with a sigh that spoke of how she’d probably actually let him try on the dresses if this didn’t work. It was getting that desperate.

Jeno locked the fitting room with a _click_ , its bejewelled knob cold underneath his fingers. He held up the garment that Jiyoung had handed him and peered at it with a hint of curiosity. It was so intensely dark in color that it almost seemed to absorb light from its surroundings, although if Jeno tilted his head at just the right angle, he could make out the barest hint of an array of hidden shades shimmering underneath the black. _Undercolors_. The most expensive colors came with undercolors; they weren’t new to the market, and had been circulating in the upper-end fashion community for a good number of years now. There was something universally, intrinsically attractive about complexity.

He put on the pants first, then the top. It wasn’t skintight, but form-fitting, with a high collar and cuffed sleeves. When he slipped on the matching gloves, they felt so smooth it was like water over his fingers. He checked himself once in the mirror, then stepped out of the fitting room.

###

At the sight of Jeno, Renjun swore.

Jeno blushed and shifted, glancing down, resting one nervous hand on the doorknob of the fitting room as if he were to flee back inside any minute. “Is it . . . that bad? Or good. I—I can’t tell.”

“I . . .” Renjun bit his tongue to keep himself from babbling. He slid his sunglasses down his nose so he could get a good look, let a shameless elevator gaze slide slowly down Jeno’s body and up again. The outfit hugged his edges with merciless precision, leaving just enough unseen to create the illusion of modesty, even though Renjun knew it was just to conceal the weapon pockets hidden on the outfit.

But, still. That _body_ . Perhaps making Jeno climb all the stairs in his mansion had paid off. His legs were— _oh, Lord_ , Renjun thought.

“Stop staring and say something,” Jeno said, biting his lower lip.

Jiyoung cooed. “You look so good, Jeno. See, this outfit accentuates your build, without coming across as garish, and the flexible fabric will stretch to allow for unrestricted movement. So will the gloves—plenty of my customers who dabble in burglary have sent me grateful emails for those very gloves. They do a delightful job of keeping your fingerprints off a scene.”

Jeno scratched the back of his head. “Really . . . ?”

“Add some earrings and it will be _perfect_ ,” Jiyoung added, obviously hoping Jeno could be persuaded to buy the outfit. “I’m thinking of dangling ones to match with that collar. You would look irresistible. Your neck would be miles long.”

“Um.”

Jeno looked at Renjun for confirmation. 

Renjun nodded, wordless.

That seemed to be enough. “Okay, I’ll take it.”

Jiyoung clapped her hands and swept over to the cash register, not bothering to hide her pleasure. Jeno ducked back into the fitting room to get changed into his normal clothes again, and Renjun couldn’t help but feel a pang at the loss—but he consoled himself with the fact that tomorrow, Jeno would put it right back on again. Tomorrow, Jeno would wear that all night long.

Renjun gingerly handed over his credit card to Jiyoung, who took it with a happy hum. He politely refused Jeno’s attempts to pay for the outfit himself. 

###

_A pair of boys, thirteen and nine years old respectively, stood in front of a pair of adults who wore dubious looks._

_The nine-year-old clasped his hands in front of him. “This is Renjun. Let’s adopt him. He needs a place to stay until he becomes a grown-up.”_

_One of the mothers pursed her lips. “Jisung. Orphans are always unfortunate, but we can’t just . . .”_

_“I told you this was a bad idea,” Renjun mumbled to the younger boy._

_Jisung clasped his hands tighter. “I’m not asking for much, Mother! Just give him a place to stay. Our house is so big already. He’ll pay you back.”_

_The two women regarded Renjun with critical eyes._

_“I’ll pay you back every cent,” Renjun agreed. And because he was a proper boy, he added, “With three percent interest.”_

###

Jeno and Renjun ended up spending the whole day at the mall together.

It wasn’t planned. But as they were leaving Jiyoung’s, Renjun noticed Jeno stopping to admire a nearby men’s clothing shop and its great post-Easter sale, and he begrudgingly slowed down to stand beside him.

“Do you think it’d be in my budget?” Jeno said.

Renjun pursed his lips. “Lee, I could buy that whole store.”

Jeno groaned. “Stop flexing, I need more civvies and you seem like you’ve got a good fashion sense, you can help pick out stuff that looks nice on me.” 

“What am I, your teenage gal pal?” Renjun said, raising his eyebrows. “Have I been reduced to a glorified shopping personnel bot?”

“Well—see, you’ve already cleared our activities for today. Messed up the schedule that I worked so hard to plan. And plus, we’re already _here_.” Jeno raised his arms, accidentally jostling the bulky shopping bags he had on each elbow. Jiyoung’s trademark was to package her products in the thickest, most deluxe type of paper bags. It was a waste of paper, if Renjun had to give his opinion.

“I don’t like shopping if it’s not digital,” Renjun sniffed. “And the last time someone forced me into doing something I didn’t like, it was the president of Germany. I aired her dirty laundry on the holo-advertisements of every subway in New Berlin. What makes you think you’d be treated any different?”

Jeno threw him a puppy-eyed look. “That’s the president of Germany. _I’m_ Jeno.”

Renjun had no idea how to respond to that.

Silently, he took both of the bags from Jeno and deposited them on a nearby hover-cart programmed to follow them around the mall. Jeno beamed.

By the end of the day, the hover-cart was sputtering from being overworked, loaded with all sorts of jeans and T-shirts and baseball caps Jeno had picked out either for himself or as gifts for his friends—and he’d had one too many berry smoothies picked up from the food court. Renjun half-thought he’d go mad from staring at the way Jeno absently chewed on his smoothie straw, plush lips darkening as the day wore on. He really had zero respect for Renjun’s mental health. 

“This was fun,” Jeno said, as they were riding back to the mansion in the limo. He patted the mountain of clothes sitting atop his lap. “Now if I go out in public, I’ll have fashion options, and I don’t have to look like the bastard child of the grim reaper and the undertaker!”

“It’s not as if you even go out very often,” Renjun pointed out.

“But. If I _do_.”

Renjun shook his head. As soon as they arrived back at the mansion, Jeno swept up all his clothes in his arms and disappeared up into his bedroom, no doubt to do a mini fashion show for Jaemin. Renjun took it upon himself to transport the bags from Jiyoung’s boutique up to the master closet, where he kept all of his gala wear. Each iteration of his gala tuxedo was practically the same; he switched up button shapes or sleeve length to fit with the yearly fashion trends, but that was the extent. Jiyoung was right in that he probably didn’t need to buy a different outfit annually, but Renjun had gotten into the routine of it. The trip to the mall was always a familiar one. 

As he was carefully hanging up both his and Jeno’s gala garments, he caught an unfamiliar face in the closest mirror. He stopped and spent a full three seconds puzzling over who that person could be.

“Oh my God, it’s me,” he said aloud. “Is that . . . do I look . . . _happy_?”

“Dummy,” came the reply. “Yes, you look happy. And you know why.”

He blinked at the mirror. Then he reached up and rubbed his eyes. “God, I’m hallucinating now,” he muttered. “Mirrors don’t talk.”

“It’s not the mirror.”

Renjun turned, whipped a coat hanger off the wall, and flung it. Standing at the entrance of the closet, Jisung caught it with ease and let it clatter to the floor as he crossed his arms.

“Park.” It had been a while since he and Jisung had been alone together. “What if I’d been in the middle of changing clothes? This is a goddamn closet.”

“Please, boss, you’re out of the closet.”

“Hilarious,” Renjun said. 

Jisung nodded. “I know.”

“Did you just come here to make bad gay jokes? Why did you call me a dummy?”

“Look, I’ve been meaning to talk to you lately,” Jisung said, coming closer. “I don’t _really_ want to have this conversation, but I think it’s overdue.”

“Several things in this world are overdue. Yangyang’s library books. The end of mercantilism. My ascension to the throne of the contempire. You’ll have to specify.” Renjun straightened his sleeves. 

Jisung was quiet for a long time, which was his tell that he was thinking too hard about something. “Your happiness,” he finally said.

“My happiness? That’s what’s overdue?”

“No, no, your happiness is why I called you a dummy.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Renjun snipped. “I guess I’m not allowed to feel joy, huh?”

“No! Stop,” Jisung said. “That’s—ugh. I’m talking about Jeno. He’s really good at making you happy.”

“He’s a really good lieutenant, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

Jisung’s face fell at how clear Renjun was emphasizing that he wasn’t going to make this conversation easy on the younger. But Renjun had been avoiding this conversation for a reason. Jisung had always been more observant than he let on.

He was also not one for beating around the bush. Before long, Jisung blurted out, “Why—why is Jeno good enough to be lieutenant and not me?”

“Are you questioning my decisions as a leader?” Renjun said coolly.

“Maybe I am.” Jisung set his jaw. “I think I deserve an answer. You’ve never given me one and if I don’t ask I’ll never get one.”

Renjun looked at him for a long while. He chewed on the inside of his cheek, trying to formulate the best way to put his emotions into words. They stood there so long in silence and stillness that the automatic light sensors in the closet blinked off.

Jisung waved an arm to turn them back on. “So are you going to answer me, or—”

“Cry,” Renjun said.

“What?”

“Prove that you can do it. Cry, right here, right now.”

“What the hell? Why?” 

“Can you do it?” Renjun said.

Jisung stared at him. His chin trembled; another tell of his frustration.

But his eyes were dry. After a couple moments, he swiped at them with his fingers. “Okay, fine. I can’t. What’s your point.”

“You’ve lost the ability to cry,” Renjun said, matter-of-fact. “That’s why I demoted you.”

“That’s such a fucking bad reason. Maybe my tear ducts are broken or something!” 

“Watch your mouth.”

“No!” Jisung’s voice rose. “Stop patronizing me like I’m your little sibling or some shit! Maybe I was—maybe we were like that, once—but that ended the moment you demoted me and cut me out of your life. You never come with me anymore when I visit my parents. I can’t even call you by your first name.”

Unsettled, Renjun tried to say something, but Jisung cut him off.

“Okay, fine! Fine. It’s not in your aesthetic to be friendly with people, I get it. When you pushed me away I was willing to step back and let you have your space or whatever. Because I respect you. But what’s all this with Jeno?”

This situation was escalating too quickly for Renjun to handle. It was easiest to calm an angry heart by offering it truth.

“I pushed you away because you’re a kid,” he said.

That made it worse. Jisung made a noise of derision. “Oh, _right_ , as if you didn’t start out earlier than I did.”

“You were becoming icy,” Renjun barrelled on. More truth. Truth was a balm for the harshest wounds; he hadn’t even known Jisung had been so wounded by this topic in the first place, but here they were. “You lost the ability to cry and you were icy and I had to give you up because—iciness isn’t a normal childhood trait. I know that my beginning was even colder than yours, but that was me, and you are you.”

Jisung squinted at him. “What are you even saying?”

“I still send your parents postcards,” Renjun said. “Every third Thursday of the month. Visit day. But I don’t visit because what if it puts them in danger?”

“Renjun, they took you _in_. Don’t you remember? You’re part of us.”

“I shouldn’t be.” Clipped. “Your moms have settled down. Retired from crime. I ought to respect that, protect that.”

“Sure, but _I_ don’t need protection! It’s messed up that you even think that, after all you and I have seen each other through.”

“Older siblings are protective,” Renjun said, spreading his hands in a tired gesture.

The words sank into Jisung one by one, visible in the way his entire body stilled. “So you _do_ still care,” he breathed.

This was a complicated subject, one that dealt with morals of age, duty, and family. Renjun shrugged, heavy.

“It’s messed up that you think I wouldn’t,” he said. “After all you and I have seen each other through.”

Jisung swore softly at hearing his own words repeated back at him. He ran a hand down the side of his face.

The closet was quiet.

Renjun reached up and rubbed his pendant, remembering the boy he’d used to be, the boy who’d still visited every third Thursday and had been so glued to the idea of family that he hadn’t realized at first it could be a liability for both him and them.

“Okay.” Jisung let out a shaky breath. Lowered his hand from his face. “But that still doesn’t explain Jeno.”

Renjun’s heart clenched. There was only so much truth he could bring himself to tell. “Let’s not go there.”

“You pushed me away to keep me safe but you won’t do the same to Jeno?” Jisung pushed. “I know you care about him. Why aren’t you pushing him away too?”

“I . . . him.” Helpless, he waved his hands in the air. “It’s not the same.”

Jisung stared at him some more. 

Renjun cleared his throat. “It’s not what you—”

“You _love_ him.”

Alarm goblins started shrieking in Renjun’s head. If Jisung had been anyone else, Renjun would have body-slammed him to the floor. “No? No. I _don’t_. What the fuck, keep your voice down, you have no idea how well sound carries in the air vents—”

“Chenle was right,” Jisung said reverently. “He saw it coming.”

“You think that glorified dolphin plushie is right all the time, no matter what he says!”

“Chenle was _right_ , oh my God, I thought he might have been onto something, but I didn’t like, believe him—”

Renjun lunged for him. Jisung swerved. Damn his fighter reflexes.

“Dejun kept hinting at it, Dejun must have known—”

“Do all of my employees gossip about me?” Renjun gritted out.

“Yeah. Come to think of it, I think everyone knew except me.” Jisung peered at him with owl eyes. “And except you.”

Renjun dropped his hands. The only sound in the closet was helpless silence.

“You think I don’t _know_?” he whispered at last.

Jisung’s face softened. “Renjun.”

“Don’t.” Renjun shook his head, turned slightly away. “Please leave now.”

There were a couple moments of hesitation before Renjun heard the gentle noise of the closet door sliding shut behind Jisung’s exit, leaving him completely isolated. Renjun raised his head and looked at the mirror, where his reflection sat with a tired look, as if patiently waiting for him to realize that its happiness belonged to him. He wasn’t sure he deserved to claim it.

###

_A kid wearing a jersey sat all alone on the outside steps of a school gymnasium, his head bowed and his elbows resting on his knees. He looked miserable. It was raining, which made him look even more miserable._

_A kid holding an umbrella pushed his way out of the gym, halted before he could fall over the other boy. He opened his umbrella. Just as it seemed like he was about to hold it over them in solemn solidarity, he said, “dammit, didn’t mean to press the button,” contracted the umbrella again, and proceeded to whack it into the other boy’s back as hard as he could._

_The boy yelped and popped to his feet. “What was that for, Junnie?”_

_“You’re doing so much needless moping,” said Umbrella Boy. “Needless sadness. It was just a game.”_

_“The scout saw me miss that free throw! I deserve to be sad.”_

_Another whack. “There will be more opportunities and more scouts.”_

_Jersey Boy caught the umbrella before he could bring it around for a third hit. Holding it in his fist, he pouted at the other boy, whose face softened, and he reached forward to brush a strand of wet hair off his forehead._

_Rain fell all around them. There was solidarity in that, too._

###

Renjun reorganized his closet. Went through the motions numbly, spent the entire afternoon color-coding the neckties he never used, ironing the socks that didn’t need to be ironed, and picking imaginary lint off of his cashmere sweaters. He never wore even a quarter of the shit in this closet. It was all so unnecessary. Everything, unnecessary.

It was sundown by the time he finally finished. The absence of the sun was a small comfort as he trudged his way up to his bedroom. After changing into some sleep clothes, he lay down in bed and drew the covers around himself.

The phone on his nightstand rang just as he was falling asleep.

He fumbled to grab it, licked his lips to dispel the dehydration in his throat. “This is Huang, how can I help you?”

“Have you been working on what I asked?”

Instantly Renjun sat up. “I . . .”

Taeyong tut-tutted. “Because I haven’t received the email evidence I’ve been expecting. Any day now, Huang. Or you know what’ll happen.”

Renjun fought back a groan. This, too, just felt like an unnecessary ordeal. “I’m disappointed you’ve resorted to such petty threats to get me to do your bidding.”

“My threats are not petty.” Taeyong sounded affronted. “You want a petty threat? Fine. Instead of you, it’ll be your loot that I get in stripes.”

Renjun was silent.

“What did you just say?”

“Your lieutenant,” Taeyong said easily. “It could be him I turn in. The feds would have a field day. I bet you haven’t trained him to hold out through torture interrogations, have you?”

Renjun’s whole body trembled in fury. His vision was unerringly red. “You. You lay a _hand_ on Jeno and I’ll shoot all your fingers off, one by one.”

“You have until the end of next week, hmm?” Taeyong sounded smug. “A hundred and sixty-eight hours should suffice.”

Renjun’s grip tightened so hard on the phone his knuckles were bone-white. “Fuck you, Lee,” he managed.

The line went dead.

Renjun slammed the phone down onto its receiver and steadied his breathing until his vision lost its tint and he could see clearly again.

He sank back into his pillows, feeling drained.

When he got this worked up over something, he would go to Jeno. Spend a night talking about meaningful nothings and sipping milk tea bought from their mutual favorite bubble tea shop and driving around the contempire in one of Renjun’s spare cars. With Jeno, Renjun would feel instantaneously calmer, more level-headed. Jeno made him feel glad he was alive. 

But he couldn’t go to him tonight.

Because Jeno would never, ever be safe, not so long as Renjun kept him close.

###

In preparing for the gala, Jeno felt a bit like a teenager getting ready for prom.

If he omitted the details of his nerf gun, hidden in his sleeve, and the miniature blades, tucked into the padded finger compartments of his gloves, all the other typical prom components were there. Donghyuck lent him earrings and did his hair, insisting he could make it look “even better than normal,” even though Jeno wasn’t sure what he meant since it wasn’t like his hair was very special to begin with. After that Jaemin swept him into the girls’ beauty salon on the eighty-third floor and did his makeup. Apparently, Jaemin had a _lot_ of experience with cosmetics. As he applied various nefarious-looking substances to Jeno’s cheekbones and eyelids, he cheerfully spouted statistics and anecdotes about his various experiences with this brand or that brand or the merits of liquid liner versus the pens. 

“Jeno, is Jaemin murdering you in there?” called one of the nine sisters from outside. “What’s taking so long? The boss is waiting.”

“Come in and tell me what you think,” Jaemin called back. 

She entered. Jeno waited as she surveyed him, hands on hips.

“What do you think, Chae?” Jaemin asked.

“I’d kiss him,” she said, nodding seriously. “Jeno, I’d kiss you.”

Jeno sputtered, nearly falling off his salon chair. “Ch—Chaeyoung, you’re a _lesbian_ —”

Chaeyoung continued. “Like, that’s how delicious you look. Enough to make lesbians straight. Don’t tell my sisters I said that, they’d call me a traitor.”

Jaemin clapped his hands, obviously pleased that he’d been able to doll Jeno up enough for a lesbian to call him _delicious_ , and hurried Jeno out the door.

As Jeno descended the glass staircase, Chenle cheered, and Mark snapped several photos with Kunhang’s camera. The doctor was by his side watching. _All_ of the mafia staff had come out, actually, congregated in the lobby to watch Jeno with delight.

“Oh my God,” he mumbled, tugging at his collar self-consciously.

“Pose! Jeno! Pose!” Mark said as he angled the camera once more.

Jeno wondered if Renjun would be angry if he used his nerf gun to shoot that camera. He showed his tongue. Mark whined, and all of the sudden Jeno was reminded of his high school graduation where a grinning and teary-eyed Mark had taken no less than two thousand pictures of him. Flushing with fondness, Jeno offered the camera a real smile.

“The boss is going to drool when he sees this,” Jisung declared.

“Well, Huang didn’t look so bad himself,” Chenle said. 

Jeno pretended not to hear them as Dejun walked him to the door. “The boss is in the car,” Dejun said. “Please abstain from total intoxication tonight, will you, Lee? I hear the cocktails are quite tempting.”

“I’ll do my best,” Jeno promised, before he nearly buckled under the weight of Donghyuck slinging an arm around his neck and dragging him down to plant a sloppy kiss on his cheek.

“Don’t worry!” Donghyuck crowed. “I’ll keep our Samoyed safe. Huang hired my humble services today. It’ll be my fourth time doing this whole gala shtick, everything’s gonna go smooth.”

Dejun sent him a smile and shut the doors after their exit. Donghyuck accompanied Jeno all the way through the front gardens. Tonight, Donghyuck was wearing his assassin uniform: an unassuming camouflage-mottled jacket and tight pants that looked just fancy enough for admission to a party but not too dressy that he’d get weird looks for it on the street. It was a skillful balance.

Donghyuck perked up at the sight of the limo. “I haven’t ridden a car that fancy in years, I’m so hyped.”

“I’m used to it,” Jeno said, opening the door and letting Donghyuck slide in first before he followed.

Putting on his seatbelt and trading greetings with Byeongkwan who sat up front, Jeno was too distracted to notice Renjun. 

He looked like an entirely different person. For starters, he had always, always worn black, absolutely anywhere he went—but tonight he had on a wine-red tux, perfectly bold enough to draw the eye and keep it there, and his hair was for once not styled up but relaxed, with striking bangs sweeping across his forehead in a display of deceptive, delicious boyishness. Youthfulness. He looked every inch like a fuckboy.

And Jeno? Jeno was utterly winded.

Renjun glanced up at him through the fall of his hair.

“Cat got your tongue, Lee?”

Donghyuck glanced. “Who, me?” 

“No.” Renjun nodded his chin at Jeno, who silently blushed.

“Oh, do you like what I did with Nono’s hair?” Donghyuck asked with a shit-eating grin.

Renjun’s gaze travelled across Jeno’s face, taking in the eyeliner, the dangling earrings. Jeno held his breath.

“It’s alright,” was all Renjun finally said. 

Then he turned away.

Donghyuck gaped. Sent Jeno an incredulous look. Jeno struggled to hide his disappointment, but judging by the way Donghyuck’s face softened into something akin to pity, he wasn’t good at it. 

Byeongkwan started the car. They started off.

Tonight was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep! We got an Ahn Jiyoung cameo! I love Bol4’s new comeback!!
> 
> So this chapter was a tad shorter than usual. Originally I planned for it to be a long one, but I’ll just push all that to next week's update and quietly adjust the chapter count … ^-^ hope y’all don’t mind
> 
> Last week, I got this sweet comment telling me it’s okay if I can’t churn out a huge amount of writing every week .. and oof bro that hit me hard? It helped me reorder my priorities. Like idk I always write fic as a way to relax and take my mind off stuff, but I hadn’t noticed that it was just turning into another responsibility. I'll be sure to be more conscious from now on!!
> 
> Stay safe, drink water, don’t skip meals!!! <3
> 
> ~ Yerin 051720


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahh let’s pretend i didn’t just go missing for a whole month
> 
> cw/tw: there’s a scene of violence in this chapter. U can go to the end notes for more information.

Watching Jeno and Renjun interact in front of his eyes was really quite a show, Donghyuck decided during the limousine ride.

The process went something like this: Renjun would open his mouth to say something, causing Jeno to perk up, but after a couple repetitions when it became apparent that the things Renjun was saying were not the things Jeno wanted to hear, his shoulders sank and he diverted his attention toward the floor of the limousine. Donghyuck thought it was cute, but also kinda sad, and he wondered if Renjun knew exactly how whipped Jeno was for him on all levels. 

Seriously, _all_ levels. What made it worse was that Jeno seemed even more ill at ease thanks to the suffocatingly sexy clothes both of them were wearing. Donghyuck stifled an eye roll. Jeno had always been a sucker for men in red, hadn’t he? The boss was Jeno’s first crush in a long time, probably at least several years by now, but Donghyuck hadn’t forgotten how to tell when Jeno was head-over-heels for someone. Blushing. Fidgeting. _Sap_ , Donghyuck thought. 

“Anyway, Haechan,” Renjun said, “we’ve yet to discuss our arrangements for tonight.”

“Yes, I am at your service,” Donghyuck said, smiling a little as he mimicked Renjun’s professional tone of voice, so different than when he’d just been casually discussing with Jeno the norms of the gala. It hadn’t gone unnoticed by him that Renjun had a tendency to code-switch between when talking to Jeno and non-Jenos. “What’s on the agenda for tonight, my client?”

Renjun reached into his tuxedo pocket and sleeve and withdrew a small rectangular photocard of a young man with dark hair styled in a dashing updo. “This is your target for tonight.”

Donghyuck took the photo and examined it. The guy in it was wearing a lip ring. “I didn’t know the vice chairman of the Pentagon wore lip rings.”

Jeno made a choking noise. “The _vice chairman_ _of_ —”

“He’ll be at the party tonight?” Donghyuck asked. He hadn’t known that such upper-crust feds were interested in these types of things. It had always only been minorly relevant politicians. The anomaly sparked his curiosity, but then again, Donghyuck had always made it a habit to refrain from asking questions about his marks, and he wasn’t about to start doing so now. “Okay. I’m on it.” He was already mentally mapping out a plan. 

Unconsciously he twisted the ring on his left middle finger, the one he donned for jobs. This morning he’d carefully filled it up with powdered poison, the synthetic type. He could just slip it into the vice chairman’s drink . . .

“Does—does he have to die, though?” Jeno asked. “Why does he have to—”

“I talked this over with you last night,” Renjun said.

Jeno paused. “Well, yeah, but you didn’t say he’d die.”

Renjun made a face. “I _implied_ it.”

“Yeah Jeno, honey, what do you think he hired me for?” Donghyuck asked, leaning close against Jeno’s side and snuggling his face into the crook of his neck. Out of the corner of his eye he kept watch on Renjun. _A hint of jealousy . . . just the barest hint . . . ?_

But the boss seemed unperturbed at the skinship. “Yang Hongseok has to die because he’s the one heading Operation Phoenix.”

“I thought that was the serial killers,” Jeno said.

“It’s both of them.”

“Why don’t we kill the serial killers instead?”

“Lele got shot when we tried that,” Donghyuck said.

“I _know_ that,” Jeno said, “but—Renjun, why do we care about eliminating Operation Phoenix? We’re just a simple mafia group. Most of what we do is just, like, smuggling arms.”

“I like your arms,” Donghyuck said, petting Jeno’s bicep.

“Why are you being so clingy tonight?” Jeno asked.

“Focus,” Renjun broke in, giving them both a stale-eyed glare. “We want to get rid of Operation Phoenix because it’s bad for business. If there’s one thing that Lee Taeyong and I see eye-to-eye on, it’s that zombies will throw the world into chaos. That kind of disruption . . . it’s a threat.”

“True,” Jeno said softly. “A threat to the neat freak, orderly leader of the mob means collapse of the vigilant, highly maintained world of crime whose sheer organization is the only thing standing between the rest of the world and utter bastard-run chaos . . . Well. I guess a threat like that is pretty scary.”

Renjun frowned and turned toward him suddenly. “Did you just call me a neat freak?” 

Jeno turned toward him too. “Sure I did.”

“That term is demeaning. I am a neat person in general. It’s a good habit, and an important one, too, if I’m going to be vigilant and highly maintained—”

“I saw your closet earlier today. You iron your socks. Who does that?”

Donghyuck’s jaw hung open. He couldn’t believe that the sexual tension between Renjun and Jeno was manifesting in the form of an argument about _socks_.

Donghyuck cleared his throat. “Um. Hey, driver guy up there? What was it. Bunkwang? Are we getting closer to the venue or . . . ?”

“It’s Byeongkwan,” said the chauffeur, “and yes. This is your stop, Haechan.” 

They pulled up to the curb, and Donghyuck was disappointed but not surprised when he saw that they were in an aggressively obscure part of town. He should’ve known that he’d eventually have to head off on his own on foot—it wouldn’t do for him to ride all the way to the venue and be seen exiting the car with Renjun. Donghyuck’s face was a pretty renowned one, as far as assassins went. 

“I’ll meet you guys at the venue,” he said. “I know the address.”

Renjun nodded. The limousine sped off. 

Donghyuck did a quick scan of the streets nearby to check if anyone was tailing them, but Byeongkwan had been strategic in his route changes and highway transfers—if anyone had been following, they’d likely have been shaken off by now. Donghyuck shoved his hands in his pockets and started down the sidewalk, all too aware of the heaviness on his left hand, the weight of the ring on his finger that reminded him he was going to take someone’s life tonight. It was a familiar weight, but not comforting in the way that most familiar things were.

Donghyuck shook off the feeling. It wasn’t good to think too much about the big picture. He’d take on the night little by little, piece by piece, the way he always did to help himself get through these things.

###

Renjun was no stranger to galas, but he never ceased to be impressed at their sheer display of wealth.

Glittering chandeliers. Sparkling tile floors. A ceiling that stretched hundreds of feet high, with enormous crystal windows draped in velvet curtains. The partygoers were just as glamorous as the venue itself: lavish men and women, decked out in the latest cutting-edge fashion, glided across the dance floor or stood in small groups near the massive buffet tables that housed enough refreshments for a country-wide banquet. Servants wearing identical aprons and heeled shoes flitted about, replacing the dishes that’d been sitting out long enough to get cold. And above all that, a grand indoor fountain with a delicate bubbling stream and a miniature pond full of golden koi fish served as the main feature of the hall, located square in the back next to the stage in which a live band and orchestra were hard at work.

“How many people do you think are here right now?” Jeno murmured, standing by Renjun’s side.

“A couple hundred,” Renjun surmised. There would be more to arrive, though. Fashionable latecomers and all.

“So, like . . .” Jeno’s uneasy gaze skidded across the ballroom hall. “What do we . . . like, _do_?”

Renjun smiled a little. “Socialize. Commune. Make connections.” 

“Oh. I don’t know if I’m, uh, really prepared for that.”

“Jeno, we’ve gone over this already,” Renjun said, moving forward so they weren’t just loitering at the front door. “We’re here to investigate exactly how much this demographic knows about Operation Phoenix. We’re probing. But lightly. We don’t want to come across as suspicious.”

Wearing a pained expression, Jeno drifted after him. “How do I know if I’m clinking glasses with a fellow criminal or with a fed?”

“You memorized the names and faces of the figureheads that I catalogued into my database, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but—”

Renjun cut him off. “Look, if Haechan is as skilled as his reputation entails, then by the end of tonight we’ll be leaving this party unscathed, and with one vice chairman quietly dead in the bathroom.”

“Right. Um. So why did _we_ bring weapons here? Like, what would we need them for?”

“I came to this party after hiring an assassin to go after Yang Hongseok,” Renjun said. “So what makes you think other people won’t have come here for the exact same purpose, except with me as their target?”

Jeno went quiet. “Ah.”

Renjun plucked a slender glass of sparkling alcohol off the closest servant’s tray. Props were always useful. He’d even call them lifelines.

“Let’s socialize, shall we?” he muttered.

###

For all his bravado about planning to get drunk tonight, Renjun was exercising excellent control over his alcohol intake.

So far, he’d migrated across the ballroom twice and engaged in conversation with the U.S. Secretary of Agricultural Affairs, the underboss of the York contempire, and the six largest shareholders of the Dark Net on this side of the Mississippi— _and_ he was only on his second drink. He’d picked up at least eight times that many cups, though, only to discard the vast majority of them after the brief drug tests he conducted on them came up positive. 

There were people out to kill him tonight. Renjun guessed three, at the very least. It was flattering.

Despite Jeno’s many worries, it was in fact easy to tell which of the partygoers was a criminal and which was just a clueless fed. Only the criminals paused before they lifted a drink to their lips—only the criminals could be caught discreetly slipping small samples of test parchment into the liquid before daring a sip. Renjun’s pocket was damp with all the soiled parchment papers he’d stuffed in there after using them.

He wasn’t sure how many assassins just like Donghyuck were hidden around the room or possibly even disguised as a servant. The doorkeeper had been sure to check everyone for weapons, but hadn't been able to locate the hidden arms on Renjun or Jeno. On top of that, their invitations had been checked at the door for legitimacy before they’d been let in, but anything could be forged if you paid enough money, and Renjun knew his guard had to be higher than ever. Every smiling face could be a spy. Every conversation was initiated out of pure economic or political interest. There were no friends here.

Jeno hovered close next to him in that way he did when confronted with large crowds. Renjun didn’t mind. It was endearing, honestly, as if he were a moth bumbling toward the closest source of light and warmth. The problem was that Renjun didn’t consider himself a _source_ , at least not of light or warmth—maybe one of tragedy and doom. Both tied to Taeyong’s stripey threats.

But. It was hard to remember Taeyong’s threats, hard to remember the newfound resolve to distance himself from Jeno, at least while Jeno was going around looking like . . . _that_.

Jeno’s smokey eyeliner made him look handsome in a timeless, serious way. It complimented his eyes, his black roots, the dark glitter of his obsidian earrings. Ahn Jiyoung hadn’t been joking when she’d said Jeno’s outfit accentuated his build. It gave him the captivating vertical impression of looking taller than he actually was. _Not that he wasn’t plenty tall to begin with_ , Renjun thought in a grumble. Donghyuck and Jaemin had definitely conspired when dressing Jeno up like this.

(Renjun had half a mind to confront Donghyuck about it. For now, though, he had no time for squabbles. At least three times so far tonight, Renjun had reached up to press his headset mic, the fine contraption hidden in his hair. He’d disguised the motion as the casual move of running his hand through his hair. That was the main reason why he’d chosen to leave his hair unstyled tonight—because he knew he’d be running his hands through it precisely every seven minutes to stay in touch with his hired assassin.

“Haechan. Report.”

The mic crackled for a couple seconds, and then Donghyuck’s voice came through. “ _I have taken up residence in the rafters. Still scouting for the mark.”_

“Okay. Don’t be seen.”

“ _I’m no amateur, Huang_.”

“There’s cameras hidden in the curtains, plus one located in the fountain. Have you—”

“ _Dismantled them already? Yes. Cameras are rarely an issue. It’s the servants you have to watch out for. They have eyes. They report everything they see.”_

Renjun’s heart beat a little faster at that. He eyed one of the closest servants, a harmless-looking girl setting a platter of lobster down onto the table. There were countless servants just like her roaming the hall. “Roger. Over.”)

Currently, Renjun was immersed in a gentle conversation with a young lady, Song Yuqi, the American-based ambassador of the Chinese mafia. Jeno nudged his side and Renjun excused himself from the conversation.

“Is it okay to eat the food?” Jeno asked.

It took Renjun a second to transition back to English. “Yeah. Go ahead.”

“But what if it’s . . .” Jeno raised his eyebrows eloquently.

“The hostess of this gala doesn’t fuck around with food,” Renjun said. “She makes sure it’s clean. Pays her cooks so handsomely that no bribery can sway their allegiance.”

Jeno’s frown made him look even more handsome. “Why aren’t the drinks so safe, then?”

“Too much tame would ruin the fun. The hostess isn’t clueless.” Renjun patted his damp pocket. “She lets us have the opportunities we need to carry out our agendas.”

“Ah.” Jeno nodded, used a pair of silver tongs to pick up a piece of steak and place it on his plate. “Well then. This looks—” He paused, translating the word in his head before speaking it aloud in Mandarin. “— _hen hao chi_. Delicious.”

Yuqi drifted back over, her purple dress swishing around her knees. Her voice was deep and distinctive, plus pleasantly complimented by the rising and falling tones of the Chinese she spoke. “My goodness, Huang, is he your plus one?”

“You could say that,” Renjun said, not sure if he liked the smirk she was wearing.

Her appreciative eyes, rimmed with golden glitter, flicked up and down Jeno’s frame. “ _Delicious_ is right,” she said, even mimicking his American accent on the three Chinese syllables.

“Don’t you have someone else to make eyes at?” Renjun asked, playful to match. “Who’s your date tonight?” 

“Wong Yukhei.” She stood on her toes to peer around. “I think he may be on the dance floor right now.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Jeno asked.

She tittered a laugh, switching to English. “Nothing much.”

Jeno made sure to finish chewing his steak before he spoke up again. “Have you noticed any zombie sightings lately?”

As if _that_ didn’t make Renjun’s blood pressure shoot up like a missile. While he’d been casually probing most of the people here tonight about Operation Phoenix, he’d been careful not to bring it up with Yuqi, knowing that any and everything she heard she could report back to China. He didn’t want deadmen to start becoming an international affair.

Glaring, he tried to catch Jeno’s eye, but the lieutenant was focused on Yuqi, who seemed startled at his bluntness. She blinked several times.

“Well, Yukhei did mention something like that. . .”

Renjun inwardly cursed. Leave it up to the lawyer to go blabbing his mouth to everyone in earshot. Wong Yukhei had so many connections, all around the globe—it had everything to do with how he had somehow managed to obtain citizenship for five different megacountries. He was notorious for being the official gossip of the crime world.

“HUANG RENJUN,” boomed a voice. “SO NICE TO SEE YOU AGAIN.”

 _Speak of the devil_ , Renjun thought, putting on a mild smile as he turned around.

Wong Yukhei was wearing a classic-cut tuxedo but with a berry-purple tie that matched the color of Yuqi’s dress. His hair was immaculate, as always, as was his enormous puppy-like smile. That smile, and his silver tongue, had disarmed at least two hundred prosecutors across the globe thus far. He was the slimy man that everyone denied having done business with but also secretly kept his contact information in the depths of their database to be reserved for the bleakest, most despair-wrought of occasions in which their only hope was the miracle worker who had gotten countless criminals out of the courtroom scot-free and declared innocent. He was called a Crawler: a contraction for criminal lawyer. Fitting. All he and his type did was find endless ways to crawl through loopholes in the law. 

“Wong,” Renjun said, inclining his head slightly. 

Yuqi held out her arm for Yukhei to take. “You’re back,” she said to him. “Did you have a nice dance?”

“SPLENDID,” Yukhei said. “MY MY, HUANG, I HAVEN’T SEEN YOU SINCE THE COLD WINTER OF YESTERYEAR. I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU NOT TO BE A STRANGER.”

“Inside voice, darling,” Yuqi urged.

“OH. SORRY.” Yukhei cleared his throat. “Sorry.” He flashed Renjun a smile. “Was just talking to the hostess. She’s hard of hearing, you know.”

“I haven’t seen Hyuna around,” Renjun remarked. “I ought to go seek her out and thank her for the invitation.”

It was a clear make for escape.

It had the opposite of the desired effect, though, judging by how Yukhei’s face flickered in interest at recognizing Renjun’s desire to leave. His gaze slid to Jeno. 

“Oh? Who’s this, Huang? Your bodyguard?”

Jeno smiled warmly. “His lieutenant, actually. I’ve heard of you before, Wong. How are you?”

Yukhei launched into a detailed description of his current life status, throwing in tidbits about his fellow Crawlers Qian and Kim. After a bit of time, Renjun spoke up. 

“Perhaps I shall go try my luck on the dance floor tonight.”

Yuqi glanced at him, lashes glittering. “Ditching us so soon?”

 _Well._ Renjun wasn’t exactly sure why he was itching so badly to get out of this conversation, but—it had something to do with Yukhei’s face, achingly familiar.

“You know,” Yukhei said in a loud whisper to Jeno, “rumor has it that Huang never brings dates to these things. Just how long have you been his loot?”

“Oh, about half a year,” Jeno said. 

Yukhei tilted his head at Renjun and gave a subtle wink. His words were addressed to Jeno. “Pray tell. Could Huang have finally settled down with someone?”

Renjun definitely did not like that wink. “Kim Dongyoung has been Lee Taeyong’s lieutenant for over five years,” he pointed out.

“Taeyong’s different!” Yukhei said. “He has had always just had eyes for one guy. Unlike other people I could mention.”

His gaze was mirthful, but it was just the tip of the iceberg.

For a stark, harsh moment, Renjun was dragged back in time to their encounter of yesteryear, as Yukhei had put it. The penthouse of a hotel in China, the orange sunset visible through the window, stolen kisses, pants down around ankles, all for the purpose of Renjun convincing Yukhei to represent him in the Supreme Court because the government was for once making a serious attempt to nab him under accusations of tax evasion and extortion. 

Renjun didn’t particularly _regret_ the sexual favor he’d done for Yukhei; he’d done it because at the time he’d been low on funds and unable to find another way to pay for Yukhei’s services in the courtroom. All the same, the favor hadn’t been forced. Renjun could even say he’d enjoyed it. 

But seeing Yukhei like this, right now, standing in the same proverbial painting frame as Jeno, was like seeing two entirely different timelines collide. The Crawler was evidence of Renjun’s past sex life, an abrupt reminder of how far Renjun had come since his careless, emotionless self who hadn’t thought twice about intimacy and that he’d ever meet anyone who would change that for him.

What he’d done with Yukhei had been fun. But it was nothing, absolutely nothing compared to the hurricane of desire that slammed into Renjun like a freight train every time he so much as _thought_ about touching Jeno.

He cleared his throat. 

“Yes, I think I’ll head off to the dance floor,” he said. “Jeno, you and I can reconvene at a later time.”

With that, Renjun swept away, not even looking over his shoulder. He knew Jeno would be giving him the puppy-eyed look. The Don’t-Abandon-Me look.

But Renjun needed space right now. He wasn’t sure if a night’s worth of dancing and drinking would be able to dispel the steady Jeno-related fluttering in his gut, but no one could stop him from trying.

###

Jeno didn’t know how long he was waiting against the wall of the ballroom before the person approached him. Truth to be told, he wasn’t really paying attention to his surroundings, his attention focused solely on the dancing figure in red, who was currently twirling a ruddy-cheeked young woman to the upbeat tempo of some type of folk dance. Jeno had no idea that Renjun knew so much about dance. Every new song that came on, courtesy of the live orchestra, Renjun seemed to know the corresponding moves for it. 

The person who approached Jeno was striking, for lack of a better word. Their gender was ambiguous, the cut of their hair and clothes equally unisex, but if one thing was for certain it was that they were exceedingly, incomprehensibly good-looking. Their face was cheekbones and green eyes and thin lips turned up in a small smile. “Hey there,” they said. “My name’s Shinwon.”

Jeno’s mind cycled through a hundred different responses he could give to that. _Cool name. Nice to meet you. Are you a criminal or . . . ?_ In the end he lost traction of his own thoughts and blurted out, “Are those colored contact lenses?”

Shinwon didn’t miss a beat. “Do you like them?”

“I do.”

“My friend said they were too ostentatious,” said Shinwon, with a light shrug. “It’s good to know that at least someone here appreciates them.” Their voice took on a sly tone. “Anyway, what are you doing here, all alone? Looking like a lost little pet?”

Jeno tilted his head with a hint of confused smile. “Not sure what you mean by that.”

Shinwon bit down on their own smile. “Cute,” they murmured. “Come, let’s dance.”

They made for the dance floor. When Jeno didn’t follow, they turned back and gave him a questioning look.

“I don’t really know how,” Jeno said sheepishly, wondering if his new friend might be discouraged by this obstacle.

“Fucking _cute_ ,” was what Shinwon said, and then they grabbed his hand and guided him out. 

For someone who was obviously experienced at dancing, Shinwon was patient with Jeno. When he accidentally stepped on their toes once, and then twice, and then three times, Shinwon didn’t seem perturbed, just tilted their head at him with sparkling eyes and talked him through the movements. _Double clap. Step and hop. Now join elbows, rotate in a small circle, and repeat._ Jeno smiled awkwardly back and tried his best to keep up with the music.

“Easy, right?”

“Yeah.” Jeno double clapped on the wrong beat. “Whoops.”

“No worries.” Shinwon leaned closer, pressing up against Jeno’s chest and encircling their arms around his neck. “We can do this instead if you like.”

They stayed like that for a little while, swaying a little to the music and occasionally scooting out of the way of other people who were actually participating in the complicated ballroom dancing. And just when Jeno started to become relaxed by the simplicity of it all, a new song came on, and Shinwon pulled away, looking excited. 

“This is my favorite.”

“How does it go?”

Shinwon showed him. It looked complicated and Jeno couldn’t help but smile helplessly, knowing there was no way he could ever pull off that kind of shoulder movement. After a couple moments, Shinwon fell back into Jeno’s arms, laughing. Jeno patted their back.

Shinwon was tactile, but not in an unwelcome way. Jeno raised his head, idly scanning about, and against all odds his eyes met Renjun’s, a couple paces away and visible in the throng. Even though he was mid-dance, he was staring straight at Jeno. 

His gaze held animosity and Jeno had no idea why. With Shinwon in his arms he discreetly turned the both of them around so he could check if there was anyone behind them that his boss might be glaring at.

When he saw who it was, Jeno’s heart dropped. 

Just a short while away was none other than the vice chairman of the United States Department of Defense. 

“ _Lip ring,_ ” Jeno whispered, remembering the photo that Donghyuck had inspected earlier that night. 

“Hmm?” Shinwon briefly took their chin off Jeno’s shoulder to peek behind them. “Oh. The guy with the lip ring? That’s my friend, the friend who told me my contact lenses looked cheesy.”

“That’s—” Jeno swallowed. “Oh. Okay. I see. Him. That’s—wow.”

Shinwon chuckled a little. “What’s with the reaction?”

“Your friend is—somehow familiar,” Jeno squeaked out.

“Name’s Yang Hongseok. Easy on the eyes, isn’t he?”

“Let’s just dance?” Jeno pulled Shinwon closer, trying his best to guide them away from the radius of the very person that Jeno had literally come here to murder.

Shinwon hummed, sending vibrations down their body. “You know, you never told me your name. We barely did any introductions at all.”

And Jeno didn’t think it’d be a good idea to start now. “Maybe we should keep it that way.”

“I don’t mind.” A pause. “I do mind being used, though, and I sort of wish you would have given me a heads-up.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I know you’re using me to make someone else jealous,” Shinwon replied. “That man in red, over there.”

Jeno was speechless.

Did they mean— _Renjun_?

“Oh, so you’re not?” Shinwon said, after noticing Jeno’s silence. “Hmm. Well, whether you’re doing it on purpose or not, I’m pretty certain it’s working.”

 _You have it wrong!_ Jeno wanted to yell. _Renjun isn’t jealous, he’s plotting ways to take down your vice chairman friend!_

Once more he noticed Renjun glowering at him. Yes, this time Renjun was definitely singling Jeno out. 

“ _What is it_ ,” Jeno mouthed.

All Renjun did was narrow his eyes. 

Jeno wondered if Donghyuck was somewhere up in the rafters, watching the exchange. No doubt the assassin had located Hongseok by now and was on the move. How could Jeno make his job easier?

“I need the restroom,” Jeno said abruptly.

Shinwon pulled back. “Know where it is? I can show you.”

“Please do.”

The two of them started off the floor. On their way, Jeno made a show of bumping into one of the servants nearby, who yelped and spilled their tray of deep purple wine all over the nearest partygoers: namely, Yang Hongseok. The vice chairman gasped at the dark stain growing on the breast of his jacket.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Seok,” said Shinwon. “I was just on my way to the restroom. Want to come with?”

“I’m coming,” said the vice chairman, casting an accusatory look at the poor servant who profusely bowed several times in apology. 

The three entered a corridor illuminated by gently bobbing holo-lamps that intermittently changed colors from pale orange to gold. Jeno didn’t let himself be fooled at all by the gentle ambiance, though—as he walked, he discreetly squinted up at the ceiling to see if he could make out the telltale gleam of amber eyes. Being a cat owner made him skilled at picking up on these small cues to tell if there was something or someone hiding in the darkness. 

Shinwon led them toward the set of restroom doors, one for men, one for women, and several miscellaneous non-gendered ones. Shinwon slipped into one of them, leaving Jeno to hold the males door open for Hongseok.

As the vice chairman entered the room, Jeno cast one last look around at the hall, and felt a small thrill when he saw the two amber eyes, patiently gazing back at him from the ceiling.

Donghyuck was somehow attached upside-down to the ceiling by the palms of his hands and feet. Not breaking Jeno’s gaze, he silently lifted a finger to his own lips. Jeno acknowledged the gesture with an almost imperceptible nod, and then entered the bathroom after the vice chairman, making sure to leave the door slightly open so that Donghyuck could slip in unnoticed.

The vice chairman’s polished shoes were visible from the space underneath one of the stalls. The rest of the stalls were empty. Jeno wondered how Donghyuck was going to go in for the kill. Smother him? Strangle him? Dunk his head in the toilet and wait until he drowned?

 _Seok_ , Shinwon had called him. A nickname between friends.

Jeno all of a sudden felt uneasy.

Suddenly, the only thing he could imagine was Jaemin’s feet under that stall. 

_No, no, no,_ Jeno thought, _that Yang Hongseok is the person who sicced the deadmen on the world. He’s basically the reason why Mark died in the first place._

But the uneasiness didn’t let up. This was what it felt like to be a traitor—but the only thing was that Jeno wasn’t sure who he was betraying.

###

Renjun stalked down the corridor toward the bathroom, his footsteps silent. His shadow flickered, courtesy of the luminescence of the orange-and-gold hallway lights, but the expression on his face was a scowl.

The vice chairman of the Pentagon had gone down this hall with Jeno just a couple minutes before. Renjun’s heart was racing and so was his mind. (He blamed the tension on the fact that he’d just witnessed Jeno _waltz_ with a _stranger_ for a good chunk of time. The whole while, that green-eyed person had been entirely too handsy. And now, they were taking Jeno down a hallway? To do what? Make out?) Renjun was aware that Donghyuck would be perfectly capable of accomplishing what he’d come here to do, but Renjun still felt the obligation to be there while the assassination happened. To keep Jeno from getting caught in the crossfire. And maybe to make sure no one was making out.

Renjun neared the bathroom door.

###

Jeno pretended to be busy while the vice chairman exited his stall and stood over the sink to scrub the wine spill off his shirt. It was incredible that Hongseok still hadn’t noticed Donghyuck, who was currently hanging from his feet off the ceiling like a bat, in a position where none of the mirrors could give him away. Donghyuck was absolutely, terribly silent, eyes on no one but the chairman.

It was unsettling. He had the gaze of a predator. Jeno had always known Donghyuck as an impatient boy who liked to make rash decisions and jump into things prematurely, but the assassin in front of him was the startling opposite. Then again, it wasn’t really Donghyuck, was it? It was Haechan. 

The only sound in the bathroom was the streaming of Hongseok’s sink. 

The vice chairman spoke over his shoulder at Jeno. “Why are you still here, loitering? If you’re done pissing, leave.”

Jeno’s heart pounded in his ribcage. “Right. Right.” He moved to the door and grabbed the knob.

It was locked. Without thought, he jiggled it.

The noise alerted Hongseok, who came over to help. “Is the door broken?” Up close, he smelled dusk-red, the color of a popular luxury cologne. 

By now, Jeno had realized that Haechan had locked the door on purpose. “Um—”

“It sure is,” Haechan said, then dove off the ceiling and landed square on Hongseok’s back. Jeno jumped out of the way as the vice chairman was knocked to the floor with a shout.

“Who are you? What are you doing? Guards? _Guards?_ Shinwon—anybody—”

“They can’t hear you.” Haechan smiled, pinning the older man to the ground. “Lovely, huh? The walls of this bathroom are soundproof. Guess the architect thought it’d be nice if no plopping poop noises could be heard from the outside. Although it’d have to be a very large shit to create such a loud echo.”

The vice chairman thrashed. His eyes fell on Jeno and he garbled something akin to a cry for help.

Haechan’s voice was calm, as if he’d done this a thousand times before. Which was probably the truth. “Hey Nono, can you help me out a little? I have to get to my ring. Hold his arm down for me?”

The uneasiness in Jeno’s heart grew so loud it was deafening. _Traitor, traitor, traitor,_ it chanted. And finally he realized it. Forget betraying Renjun and Shinwon—by doing this, standing here in this bathroom, Jeno was betraying _himself_ and his own moral code.

“Come on,” Haechan urged.

But Jeno stood his ground. 

A suffocatingly significant moment passed. “Fine then,” Haechan said. “I’ll do it on my own.” 

He shifted his grip on Hongseok, freeing his own hands so that he could quickly flick open his ring compartment. It was filled to the brim with a tiny but potent amount of a green synthetic substance. Haechan pinched Hongseok’s nose shut.

The struggling vice chairman’s mouth fell open on reflex, and just as Haechan was about to shove the contents of his ring down his throat, a cry ripped out of Jeno and he surged forward, to stop this, to do something.

But before he could reach them, there was an enormous splintering noise, and Jeno’s vision went dotty as he was thrown off his feet. For an eternity he sailed through air, before his shoulder slammed into the ground and pain roared through his body. Plaster rained all around. Out of the rubble, through the gaping space in which the bathroom door had been blown clean off its hinges, strode a figure in a red tuxedo.

“Renjun,” Jeno coughed, dragging himself into a sitting position and trying to dispel the dust in his lungs. “You—why are you—”

“I heard you scream.” Wide-eyed, Renjun let go of the ammunition and dropped to his knees beside Jeno. “Are you okay?”

“Huang, what are you _doing_ here?” Haechan shouted, bits of debris clinging to his hair as he grappled with the vice chairman who was making an even more spirited attempt at escape. Haechan’s ring was visible empty, the powder scattered all over the bathroom floor now. When he saw it he snarled out a curse, reaching for the knife by his hip. Hongseok seized the opportunity and kicked Haechan off him, scrambling to his feet.

In a blur Haechan’s knife sang through the air in its journey to bury itself in the vice chairman’s heart, but the man was surprisingly agile, stepping out of the way last minute. Instead, the knife sailed past and missed the second figure running into the bathroom.

Unaware that they had just evaded impalation by a millimeter, Shinwon burst in and swiped their arms to clear the airborne dust all around. “What’s going on here? Seok?”

“We have to get out of here,” Hongseok said, grabbing Shinwon’s elbow.

Shinwon resisted his pull and took in the scene quickly: Haechan, near the wall, and Jeno, on the floor, with Renjun kneeling beside him, the explosive he’d used to blow down the door sitting discarded by his side. Shinwon’s green gaze turned livid. Just as it seemed they were about to say something, a woman burst into the bathroom, her long bright orange hair loose around her shoulders. She gasped.

“Huang, what did you _do_?”

“Kim Hyuna,” Renjun said, rising to his feet. “This isn’t what it—”

Hyuna cut him off. She gestured at the wreckage of the bathroom. “I invited you to my party and you did _this_?” 

Shinwon looked spooked. “Huang?” they echoed. “Huang Renjun?”

“No, Huang _doddlycakes_ ,” Hongseok hissed, tugging at his friend’s elbow once more. “Of course he’s Huang, you dumbass, he and his assassin friend just tried to kill me!”

“You.” Shinwon’s gaze latched onto Jeno. “You’re an assassin?”

Their assumption was incorrect, but Jeno flinched all the same. A fleeting expression of hurt crossed Shinwon’s face, before their expression closed off into something unreadable and they retreated a pace backward to stand in front of Hongseok. 

“No, I’m the assassin,” Haechan sniffed. “Duh.”

“Quick, Haechan, finish him,” Renjun ordered.

“Wait, no, no,” Jeno heard himself saying. “No. Please.”

Several things happened in very rapid succession: Shinwon catapulted themselves at Haechan. The two of them wrestled each other, throwing fists, fighting like feral animals, and sometime during it, one of them drew a switchblade.

Jeno’s heart jumped into his throat and before he could tell himself it was a bad idea, he barrelled forward. Renjun screamed; Jeno threw Haechan out of the way; Shinwon stabbed downward. There was the dull, ugly, unforgettable sound of a blade burying itself into flesh, and then everyone in the bathroom went still. Shinwon stumbled back, the look in their eyes turning to terror as they saw what they’d done.

“Shit,” Jeno breathed, slowly turning his gaze downward at himself.

There was a knife sticking out of his stomach.

There was a _knife_ sticking out of his _stomach_. 

It didn’t hurt at all. Why didn’t it hurt? _Shock_ , Jeno’s brain helpfully supplied, as he staggered to the side and gripped the rim of the sink for support. With a savage cry, Haechan kicked Shinwon to the ground. A dull throbbing began to build in Jeno gut, near where the switchblade was buried. Should he pull it out? Why hadn’t Shinwon pulled it out? “What the fuck,” he said faintly.

A small crowd, including several buff-looking guards dressed in matching uniforms, had gathered in the hall, alerted by the pandemonium. Hyuna screamed at the sight of the knife buried in Jeno. Everything was going wrong. 

“ _Jeno_.” It was Renjun, beside him. Only someone who knew Renjun really well would be able to tell how frightened he was right now. “We have to get out of here.”

“Nerf gun,” Jeno panted, leaning on Renjun’s shoulder. “In my sleeve.”

Renjun understood immediately. With his palm he worked the weapon out of Jeno’s sleeve before aiming and firing it at the bathroom wall to his left. The brightly colored magenta bullets made quick work of the concrete, eating away an opening that exposed the night sky.

“Guards, stop them!” shouted Hongseok. “Open fire!”

Gunshots filled the air.

“Go, go, go!” Haechan shouted, bullets pinging all around. 

Renjun dragged Jeno along. Jeno closed his eyes against the pain in his stomach, wishing this were all just a nightmare.

“No, no, open your eyes, stay with me.” It was Renjun’s panicked voice, somewhere close to Jeno’s ear. “Stay with me, stay.” There was a lot of jostling and then a shock of cool night air on Jeno’s face; they had made it outside. 

“Can you stand?” Renjun demanded.

Jeno’s thoughts were slow. “I don’t . . . don’t think . . .” 

“Fuck. Fuck. You’re going to make it out of this. Do you hear me? I’m going to make sure you’re okay. You have to be okay. Lee Jeno do you fucking _hear_ me?”

“Hmmhnngnm,” was all Jeno could say, before blackness enveloped him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief description of the violence if anyone skipped to the end notes for more information on it: our nono winds up with a knife in his abdomen. But I don’t describe it in a ton of detail and the scene’s pretty quick.
> 
> For the rest of y’all: okaaaay so. That happened! :D pls dont hate meee ik cliffhangers are gross but next chapter will be soft as hell so i hope that makes up for it
> 
> Oh btw the reason why I went MIA for the past 3 weeks is cuz i developed a nasty lil bitch called carpal tunnel syndrome and I just,, couldn’t type for 3 weeks ack. But I am back on track now! ty track ty track
> 
> On a more serious note . . . I hope the reader out there (yesss youuu) that’s reading this rn can stay healthy, happy, and safe, wherever you are. It is your human right to be treated with respect no matter your skin color. Let’s spread hope and optimism in the face of the negativity and racism that America is working through right now.
> 
> ~ Yerin 060720


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I envy the ao3 user who’s in front of their screen reading this fic as a completed piece right now because it means that yOU get to enjoy the completed product while little old me is still over here tryna complete it agh

Dejun didn’t know where to start.

Usually his boss was good at his job. Good at getting work done, at not falling behind with deadlines, at staying focused and poised with a talent for keeping his emotions in check. But ever since the gala disaster two nights ago, the boss’s work persona had slipped away entirely, replaced with someone so raw and turbulent that it made Dejun wonder if Renjun had secretly been this unstable all along and the gala had been the last straw.

The waiting room was a pleasant area, decked out with bland photographs and pale-colored walls, designed to give the families of the Operating Room patients as much comfort as possible in such an otherwise impersonal, clinical setting. As this was an upper-class hospital, there were large and private waiting rooms for each individual patient’s family. But despite this generous size, the entirety of the waiting room for Lee Jeno was packed.

The nine sisters sat close to each other, faces grim, voices hushed whispers. Dejun, Kunhang, and Yangyang—the hitman, the doctor, and the grenade-loving joyrider, respectively—had claimed the carpet space. And Jeno’s brothers and best friends, each in various states of tearfulness and fearfulness, were clinging close to each other like a tremulous assortment of packaged mochi cakes.

Renjun was the only one sitting away from the rest. He was slumped in a chair, his gaze blank.

He looked small, in a startling way he had never before. Dejun was half-certain that if Jeno didn’t make it through tonight, neither would Renjun.

“W-we dressed him up so nicely.” It was the dolphin boy, Chenle, sobbing into Jaemin’s shirt. All around him lay a collection of scattered photocards, the very pictures that Mark had taken of Jeno while preparing for the gala earlier that night. “We d-dressed Jeno up so nicely. I w-wanted him to get laid, not _s-stabbed!_ This is unacceptable. I quit. This w-whole fucking contempire is c-c-cancelled.”

“I don’t think they stabbed him because he was dressed nicely,” said Mark hollowly.

“Don’t cry, Lele.” Jisung leaned into his boyfriend’s shoulder. “Jeno will probably be okay. The doctors here are like gods. I heard about a guy who got a coat hanger stuck in his nose and everyone thought he’d bleed to death from it, but he was rushed to the Emergency Room and to this day he’s perfectly fine.”

“A coat hanger isn’t the same thing as a switchblade!” Chenle wailed.

“It was Wong Yukhei,” Donghyuck said, speaking up for the first time in a while. “The coat hanger guy. He was at the gala.”

 _Gala_. It was a haunted word now. Everyone in the room bowed their heads.

“I’ll kill them,” Chenle sniffled. “I’ll kill whoever hurt Jeno.”

“No, you won’t,” Jaemin said. “Don’t talk like that.”

They had all seen first-hand the aftermath of previous revenge cases. They all knew that they just led to more and more heartbreak, more and more resentment. 

“Oi, Huang.”

It was Donghyuck. Renjun’s glassy gaze tilted in his direction. Even through whatever haze was going on in his head, he must have been able to pick up on Donghyuck’s incensed look, because he winced a little. “What?”

“If you didn’t barge into the bathroom in the middle of my job, then this wouldn’t have happened.”

“I understand that.” Stiff. 

“I had the door locked and everything.” Donghyuck ran his hands through his hair. “It was all going so smoothly up until you decided to—to fucking _flounce in_ and add extra variables to the scene that I just couldn’t account for all at once! How was I supposed to fend off Shinwon and all of Hyuna’s guards at the same time? In the end, someone was bound to get hurt!”

Renjun mumbled something indecipherable.

“What was that?” Donghyuck demanded.

“It should’ve been me,” he muttered.

Donghyuck’s eyes flared. “Damn right. Why does Jeno have to pay for your mistakes? I’ve always known you were a lowlife, but I didn’t think you’d stoop so low as to use my best friend as your personal human shield.”

“You think I wanted this to happen?”

“Hyuck,” Mark began. “I don’t really know the specifics, but at least it’s not like he made Jeno take the knife for him, so—”

But the assassin looked like he wasn’t about to listen to reason anytime soon. “I can’t stand you, Huang,” he said. “You’ve put the people I love in danger, time after time. You’re toxic. Someone like you doesn’t deserve Jeno—all you’re going to do is just keep hurting him.”

That seemed to cause a reaction. Renjun rocketed to his feet. “Say that again.”

“Jeno. Doesn’t. Deserve. You.”

“One more time.” Renjun’s fists curled. “I _dare_ you.”

“What are you gonna do? Hit me?” Donghyuck wore a smirk. “Look, you’re just proving my point, all you do is bring grief to the people in Jeno’s life.”

“ As an assassin, _you_ bring grief to people indiscriminately!” Renjun shouted. “What makes you think Mark Lee deserves someone like you?”

In a blur, Donghyuck crossed the room. Before anyone could do anything, before anyone could _say_ anything, there was a sick cracking noise and the boss stumbled, his hand coming up to cup his face. Donghyuck was shaking out his knuckles, which were split pink. 

Alarmed, the nine sisters climbed to their feet, but to Dejun’s surprise the boss thrust out a hand for them to stay back.

“Go on,” he panted at Donghyuck. “Have at me. Hit me all you want. It won’t make Jeno any better.”

This time, Donghyuck’s fist slammed square into Renjun’s throat, knocking him backward by the force of the blow. Dejun had never once seen Renjun willingly take a beating, but here he was—and pray tell, was he _laughing_? “Who’s the violent one now?” he managed.

Donghyuck made to strike him again. With a scream, Chenle threw one of Jeno’s photocards at the two of them. “Stop it!” he shrilled. “Just stop it!” 

The photo fluttered to the ground between them, landing faceup. In it was Jeno, wearing his signature crescent smile as he descended the mansion’s glass staircase on the way to the gala. 

One hand gingerly massaging his assaulted throat, Renjun stared down at the picture.

Donghyuck’s fist lowered.

“Just . . .” He turned away, as if he couldn’t stand to look at Renjun anymore. “Just tell me why you came into the restroom back there.”

No one spoke; Dejun scarcely breathed.

“I—I just wanted to make sure Jeno was okay,” Renjun said.

Jisung made a keening noise of sympathy.

“And all you ended up doing was mess everything up,” Donghyuck mumbled, but his voice lacked the spite it’d held just a couple moments ago. Instead, he just sounded weary. 

###

That had been a day and a half ago. Now, the bruises on Renjun’s jaw and neck were starting to fade into a lighter albeit uglier yellowish-green, but the glassiness in his gaze didn’t cease. His mood was a constant roulette: numb, inconsolable, angry, or all of the above.

It was three in the morning when he felt a tap on his shoulder. It was Kunhang, peering down at him with a concerned look. “Boss, you okay?”

“What do you think,” Renjun muttered.

“You’re the only one still here,” Kunhang said, gesturing around. “Don’t you think it’s time to go back to the mansion and get some rest?”

Renjun blinked, taking in the emptiness of the waiting room for the first time. He hadn’t really been paying attention to his surroundings lately. “Jeno’s brothers were here earlier,” he said, uncertain. 

“They left _hours_ ago. I came by to make sure you weren’t still sitting here, but seeing as you’re still in the same place I left you, I am thoroughly disappointed. Just—listen to me, alright? Jeno’s friends and family care about him as much as you do, but they accept that they can’t just sit around in the waiting room day and night without moving a muscle or tending to their bodily needs. Boss, when was the last time you had something to eat?”

Renjun was already losing interest in this conversation. He looked away.

“Don’t you need to use the bathroom?” Kunhang pressed. “Or at least drink something?” 

Renjun shrugged.

Kunhang switched tactics. “The surgery went smoothly, right? When did the doctors say Jeno can be discharged from the hospital?” 

“Next week,” the boss answered immediately. “But he’s resting right now. They—the doctors won’t let me in to see him.”

“. . . Did you try bribing them?”

Renjun couldn’t help but snort at that. Kunhang was a gentle soul, sure, but he knew the gritty way the world worked.

“Yeah, but it didn’t get me anywhere.”

“I see. Money can only get you so far,” Kunhang said, nodding. It was a quote Renjun had never agreed with—he’d always been of the firm belief that money could do anything and if it couldn’t then he just wasn’t using enough of it—but in this moment, he was starting to open his mind. No amount of wealth could undo the damage that the switchblade had done to Jeno’s liver. And while the doctors said he showed promise for recovery, Renjun knew he would never be the same again. That type of injury changed a person.

“I think I’m changing, Wong,” he said. “I think I know what it feels like to be afraid of death.”

“About time,” Kunhang said.

Renjun threw him a sharp look. “What?”

“Look, I’m rusty with my Korean, but I at least remember how to express gladness, and I’m _glad_ that you’ve realized life is more than just some video game where people can lose lives all the time and it doesn’t matter.”

“Why the hell is it relevant if you’re rusty with your Korean?”

Kunhang sounded exasperated. “Boss, we’re speaking in Korean.”

“No we’re not.”

That got him an unimpressed look.

Renjun winced in realization. “No, we’re not,” he said again, this time in English.

He had a tendency to toggle between languages when he was too stressed to focus on just one. It’d been more prevalent when he was younger and still learning the ropes of multilingualism, but he’d long since thought that he’d grown out of the bad habit.

Then again, there were lots of things of his childhood he’d thought he’d lost, only for them to resurface. 

###

_Two boys hid side-by-side in the underbrush behind a white picket fence, their fingers laced tight together. It was raining. One of them was crying._

_“Shh,” said the other, tugging on the pendant that hung around his own neck. “Hush now, they’ll find us.”_

_“If they take me, promise you’ll come to my rescue,” he sobbed. “You can’t leave me. You can’t leave me.”_

_“I’m not going to leave you,” whispered the friend._

_There was shouting. Bootsteps. The boy with the pendant poked his head up and saw people approaching. He ducked back down. “I’m never going to leave you,” he said fiercely. “I will always be in your heart.”_

_A sniffle. The boy peered up at him. “What?”_

_He disengaged himself from the other. “I’m going to rescue you now, okay?”_

_“Wait.” Horror filled the boy’s eyes. “No. No.”_

_The boy with the pendant gently pushed the other to the ground out of sight, and then he stood up and walked out of the underbrush._

###

The first thing Jeno heard when he came to was voices.

“—said only family members could be in here.”

“Hyuck, come on. If I’m not his family then who am I?”

“Mark, you’re legally _dead_ —”

“Both of you be quiet! You’ll alert the doctor. It’s a miracle we even got in here without supervision. And anyway I was doing research last night and I saw somewhere that if you make too much noise around someone who’s in a coma, they might have nightmares.”

“For the last time, Jaem, he’s not in a coma. He’s just still in recovery from the anesthesia they put on him during the lobotomy.”

“It was a laparotomy, Hyuck. That’s very different.”

“Oh. Well, not all of us went to med school, Mark.”

Jeno stirred with a soft groan, then immediately regretted the action when a wave of pain flooded his abdomen. On top of that, his throat ached, as if he hadn’t had water in days. How long had he been asleep for? The last thing he remembered was . . . was . . .

His eyes flew open.

“Renjun,” he croaked, scrabbling at the bedsheets for purchase. He had no recollection of getting into bed but well, here he was. There was also an IV secured firmly in his arm.“Where’s—is he—”

Before he could really process what’s happening, someone cried out _he’s awake, look my Jeno’s awake_ and then he had a pair of arms around his neck. 

“I thought you would die,” sobbed Jaemin, all but squeezing the life out of Jeno. “You big motherfucker, I thought you were gonna _die_.”

Stunned, Jeno could only lie there, until eventually it became apparent that the sound of Jaemin crying was accompanied by another person’s quiet sniffling. Jeno craned his neck around Jaemin’s mass of fluffy hair and was horrified to discover that it was none other than Mark, sitting on Donghyuck’s lap and smearing away tears.

Jeno tried to ask what was wrong, but the effort set his throat on itchy fire and he tried to cough but _that_ effort hurt his stomach too much. 

“Here.” Mark blew his nose on his sleeve and reached forward to tuck an ice cube between Jeno’s lips. There was a container of ice sitting by the bedside. “Suck on this. For a little while, you’ll have to suck on ice instead of actually drinking anything—it’s standard procedure for after big surgeries.”

Donghyuck reached forward to tug Jaemin off of Jeno. “Hey, you can’t just throw yourself on him like that—he’s recovering from the lobotomy.”

“A _laparotomy_.” Even while crying, Mark managed to sound agitated. “I’m not gonna say it again.”

Jeno waited until the ice had shrunk small enough for him to be able to speak. “How did I—oh my God, please stop weeping.”

“Yeah, stop,” Jaemin said, clambering off of the bed to hug the eldest.

“So what exactly happened?” Jeno asked. As far as he could tell, he’d teleported to this sunny, cheerful hospital room straight from the noir horror of the gala night. “Am I still alive?” _Is Renjun . . ._

“Ko Shinwon happened,” Donghyuck grumbled. “They did this.”

“Oh, no,” Jeno said, “I liked them. At first, I mean.”

“They _stabbed_ you,” Jaemin supplied. 

“And,” Donghyuck jumped in, as if he could read Jeno’s mind, “and it doesn’t matter if it was an accident or not, because they had that knife out for a reason, and if it hadn’t been you then it would’ve been me.”

That sank into Jeno.

They were all quiet for a little while.

“How are you feeling right now?” Jaemin whispered to Jeno, clambering to feed him another ice cube.

“A little tired.” Chewing on the ice, Jeno sank backward into his pillow. “What day is it?”

“Monday,” Jaemin said.

That meant it’d been two nights since the gala. Jeno’s gaze roamed the hospital room.

“He’s not here,” Donghyuck said, once again as if reading Jeno’s thoughts. “Huang’s not here.”

Oh.

Oh _,_ no _._

“He’s not dead!” Jaemin said quickly as the machine for Jeno’s heart rate started to frantically pick up in speed. “He’s just at the mansion right now. When we go back we’ll let him know you’ve woken up.”

“How—how long is it until I can go back to the mansion?” 

Mark straightened up. “You’ve got a grade four liver laceration. You hemorrhaged so they had to open you up and stitch you back together again. You’ll stay in the ICU for a week for management, and then once you’re discharged you’ll have to reduce your activity for six to eight weeks, if not longer, depending on what your doctor says.”

Donghyuck wrapped his arms around Mark’s stomach from behind. “My big med school nerd,” Donghyuck cooed. 

“Eh, not really,” Mark said, although he didn’t push him away. “I don’t actually recall anything I learned in med school. I was just repeating what I overheard the doctor say to the nurse here ten minutes ago.” Mark fixed Jeno with a tired look. “Apparently, Jeno, I’m not legally documented as your family—they wouldn’t let me in to see you.”

“Well, it’s just standard security to not let random people into a hospital ward,” Donghyuck pointed out. “Especially if the random person doesn’t have an ID. For all they know, you could be a weirdo homeless guy.”

“But I’m not,” Mark protested.

“You kinda are,” Jaemin said, then winced under the glare that Donghyuck shot him. “Hey, I’m just being factual! Mark has nothing to his name.”

“How did you guys even get in here?” Jeno said to change the subject, because it looked like Mark was going to start crying again. 

“Oh, right.” Jaemin pointed up at the ceiling, where a spacious air vent could be seen missing its grate. “All of us have to camp out in the air vent when the doctor comes in so she can’t see us and kick us out.”

Jeno made a face. “Where are Chensung?”

“At school. Mark said it was imperative that they not miss any curriculum.”

There was the distinctive noise of padded feet coming down the hall toward their room. Jaemin cursed and climbed off the foot of Jeno’s bed where he had been sitting. 

“We have to go,” Donghyuck said, getting to his feet as well.

Mark quickly dug a holo-phone out of his pocket and slid it over to Jeno. “Here. Take your phone. If something goes wrong, or if you need us, dial me and I’ll be here in no time.”

“I wish you could be here all the time,” Jeno mumbled, taking the phone and hiding it under his bedsheets.

Mark’s smile was a little sad. “I know.”

He reached out and ruffled Jeno’s hair.

“But no matter if I’m legally dead or alive, we’re still sibs, got that?” he added.

Jeno nodded. With that, Mark clutched onto Donghyuck, and the younger raised his arm and shot a zipline out of his knuckles. The grappling hook fixed onto a notch in the above air vent. Jaemin grabbed onto Donghyuck’s other arm and the assassin pulled all three of them up on the wire—the tips of their feet had just disappeared into the air vent when the doctor padded into the room. 

“Mr. Lee, you’re awake!” she exclaimed. “How are you feeling?”

“Uh,” Jeno said. “A little tired.”

“You need to get some more rest.” After she checked his vitals and explained his condition, most of which Mark had already covered, the doctor moved around the hospital room to close the blinds on the windows. “Sleep tight. Remember, you can press the button on your bed rail in the case of an emergency.”

When she was gone, Jeno gingerly touched the bandages wrapping his midriff, and winced at the pain. He pulled the blankets up to his chin and closed his eyes.

###

_The crying boy, huddled in the underbrush, watched as his friend went down. Through a crack in the white picket fence, he watched every agonizing second of it._

_He didn’t cry out, not even when the rain turned acidic and scalded his head and shoulders. Instead, he bit down on his fingers so hard he drew blood. The ordeal was long. It was a couple hours later when he picked himself off the ground, dazed and empty._

_There was nothing left of his friend except for blood staining the grass like tiny red rivulets. The rest of the clearing was empty. He’d seen what they’d done to him, and it couldn’t be unseen._

_But the brain had a funny way of erasing things it couldn’t bear to remember._

###

Gasping, Jeno jolted awake.

For a moment he lay stock-still in bed, trying to comprehend just where he was and why he was surrounded by an IV drip and a ton of technology screens, until he remembered he was in the hospital.

The beeping in the machines around him turned faster, evidence of his skyrocketing heart rate. Without thinking, he slammed the red button on his bed rail. In an instant the lights in the room turned on and a nurse dressed in navy scrubs sprinted through the door. 

“Mr. Lee! What’s wrong?”

“I’m okay,” Jeno managed, chest heaving up and down. “I just—” Words of explanation hurtled through his brain faster than he could latch onto any of them. How could he explain what he had just seen? “I—acid rain—blood, fuck, a lot of blood—”

The nurse, who seemed experienced with these kinds of outbursts, hummed in understanding and used their palms to gently push Jeno back into the bed. He hadn’t even realized he’d sat up. “Try to steady your breathing, alright?” the nurse said, their tone low and soothing and reminiscent of Kunhang’s honeyed doctor voice. “If you hyperventilate, you might black out.”

Jeno tried to comply with the nurse’s suggestion, but breathing easy proved hard when the only thing he could think of was how he had just had what was possibly the worst flashback of his life. He hadn’t _thought_ that his flashbacks could take the form of dreams, but apparently they did. Another torrent of panic seized him; would the flashbacks continue following him into his sleep? Would he ever be able to rest soundly again? Was this all just a repeat of the torturous cycle of sleeplessness he’d suffered in the days after Mark’s death?

He wanted to ask the nurse these questions, but he wasn’t really sure how he would phrase it, or what kind of help the nurse would even be able to offer. So he didn’t say anything. Eventually when Jeno’s heart rate had more or less stabilized and he’d succeeded in assuming an appearance of outward calm, the nurse left Jeno with a promise to check back in after a couple hours.

Jeno waited until the sound of their footsteps disappeared. Then he reached underneath his blankets, took out his phone, and dialed Jaemin.

When his friend picked up, it was with an impressively loud musical ruckus raging in the background. Jeno winced and had to hold the phone away from his ear. “Hello?” Jaemin shouted over the noise. “Jeno?”

“Hey. You at work?”

“Yeah. It’s the dead of the night, this is rush hour. What’s up? Do you need something?” There was a rustling, probably Jaemin stepping outside of the club into a more quiet area. “Say the word and I’ll be right there. The customers tonight aren’t fun anyway.”

Jeno took a deep breath. “Do you remember if I was ever friends with a small painter boy back in middle school?”

“What?”

Judging by the lack of recognition in Jaemin’s voice, that was a no. Jeno pressed on, his voice disproportionately loud in the silence of the hospital room. “Did I ever mention to you any friends I had in middle school? You know, friends I had before you came along.”

Jaemin chuckled, obviously confused. “You were a loner before I met you, Jeno. You’ve told me a million times that you were grateful I swooped in and saved your friendless ass from eternal lonesomeness.”

Jeno was fairly certain that he’d never said such a thing, or at least not with that particular wording, but then again he didn’t really trust his memory anymore. “Okay.”

“What was that question all about? Is everything alright? Do you need me to—”

“No, no,” Jeno cut in. “You can get back to work.”

It took a while until he’d fully convinced Jaemin that he was fine and he didn’t need to drop everything and drive over to the hospital to sneak in and lay next to Jeno until he could fall back asleep (Jaemin liked to dance as a way to relieve his stress, and Jeno didn’t want to take that away from him), but when he finally ended the call, he slid his phone back under the blankets and stared up at the hospital ceiling.

The memory of the grass watered by blood haunted his thoughts. Ironically, he sort of wished he hadn’t seen it.

###

The days in the hospital dragged on. 

After a couple nights of Jeno’s recurring nightmares, all of which were identical to the last, the doctor recommended he partake in art therapy. In painting after painting, Jeno tried to replicate the very images he saw in his dreams, but when the doctor complimented the _nice big cumulus cloud_ that he had drawn, he knew it was no use. He wasn’t an artist. His hands were clumsy and didn’t know how to use a brush, much less draw a recognizable depiction of a white picket fence that wouldn’t be mistaken for a goddamn cloud.

He rejected the sleep medications that the doctor recommended he take. She’d tried to give him a prescription, explaining that it might help him rest easier at night without waking up periodically in a sheen of sweat from his nightmares, but Jeno had heard horrible stories about what happened to people who got hooked on sleep meds. Donghyuck’s favorite musician had died of overdosing on them.

“Jen,” Donghyuck said one day at Jeno’s bedside, twiddling his thumbs. “I . . . uh, I kinda have to tell you something.”

“Please don’t do that thing where you ramble about Mark’s sparkly eyes for an hour,” Jeno said. “Why don’t you just ask him out?”

“I wasn’t going to—ugh, Jeno, asking someone out is harder than it sounds. And you would know,” Donghyuck added.

Jeno frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Never mind. I came here to tell you something about Huang. It’s . . . uh. Okay, don’t—don’t be mad or anything, okay?” Donghyuck peeked at him, uncharacteristically shy.

“Spit it out.”

“You have to promise you won’t be mad.”

“Geez, okay, you’re making me anxious, please just say it already—”

“Okay! Okay. Um. I . . . I may have punched him.”

Jeno blinked, trying to process that.

“You punched him.”

Donghyuck nodded. “Yes. In the face. And, uh, maybe more than once. It was twice, I think.” When Jeno was quiet, Donghyuck hurried on, words spilling out of him in the way they did when he was feeling guilty about something. “Hey, he was the one who hurt you in the first place! What was I supposed to do, just let him get away with it? I had to give him a piece of my mind!”

“Renjun never laid a finger on me,” Jeno said quietly. “I have no idea what you mean by he hurt me.”

“Don’t you remember? He was the one who blew down the door in the gala bathroom and, in doing so, allowed that nasty Ko Shinwon to enter as well. It’s a direct causation—”

“Don’t use words you don’t understand,” Jeno snapped. “It just makes you sound dumb. It was correlation, not causation.”

“Same—same thing, innit?”

“No. Why didn’t you punch Shinwon instead? Why go for Renjun?” Jeno shook his head. “You never think these things through. You just think with your fists, don’t you? It’s always violence with you.”

“That’s not fair,” Donghyuck said, growing red. “I grew up in the—”

“I don’t care if you grew up in the assassin’s guild or the cupcake baking guild! You can’t just—just—” Suddenly all Jeno could think of was the bloody memory of his nightmares. “Shit. Is he okay? I need to see him. Why hasn’t he visited yet?”

Donghyuck spread his hands. “No idea.”

“Did you apologize to him?”

“Why would I?”

Jeno stared at him, trying to glean what he meant. Trying to find a way to put Donghyuck in a better light. But in the end, he was just disappointed.

“I don’t want to see you anymore,” he muttered, hands clenching the blankets underneath him. “I think you should leave.”

“Fine,” Donghyuck said, and used his grappling hook to swiftly exit the room through the air vent in the ceiling. Jeno was left alone, his fists tight around the blankets. 

###

Jaemin squinted against the bright teal-colored lights of the club, using one hand to shade his eyes and the other to chug a pseudoplastic bottle of water. He drained it dry and then set it down none too softly back onto the counter. One of the bartenders quietly took it and gave him a refill without a word.

After a couple moments, the bartender spoke up. “Hey, man. Are you—”

“No, I’m not,” Jaemin snapped. 

The bartender looked startled.

“I’m not in a bad mood, I mean.” Jaemin had been asked that very question by three different people tonight, two of them some of his regular customers (which had been embarrassing) and one of them Johnny (which had been more than embarrassing). Johnny was always so unruffled, it made Jaemin feel guilty for being anything other than chill to match. “Why? What is it, Kevin?”

“Nothing,” Kevin said. A piece of his dark hair curled down his forehead. “So, you’re on your break right now, right? Got any plans for after the club closes?”

“Hmm,” Jaemin said, his distracted gaze roaming the club. There were probably several patrons out there wondering where he was. “When does the club close again?” Usually Jaemin just stayed until around two or three a.m.

“The boss and his boyfriend are having a date night tonight,” Kevin said. “You know what that means.”

Jaemin did know. Whenever Ten and Johnny went on date nights, they tended to close the club at around midnight, too giddy to wait for normal closing hours. It was as if the couple was still in their honeymoon phase—even though they’d been together for at least a couple months by now, ever since Jaemin’s DUI race track incident. More than once Ten had stopped to thank Jaemin for being so reckless that night, because it had ended with Ten finally “successfully wooing the man of his dreams.” Ten’s words, not Jaemin’s.

“I ought to get back to work,” Jaemin said, after he finished the second bottle of water with a sigh. “Thanks for the drinks, Kev.”

“Wait,” Kevin spoke up before he could walk off. “You didn’t really answer my question. Do you have plans tonight? Would it be okay if we hung out later?” 

“Oh? Uh, yeah. Are you and the rest of the guys going out someplace?” Jaemin peered about to see if any of the other bartenders were around. There was a cluster of them hovering nearby and whispering together, but when Jaemin’s eyes fell on them they quickly turned away. Like that wasn’t suspicious at all. “What’s all this about?”

“Ugh, I thought I told them not to do that,” Kevin groaned, turning to the guys. “Boys! Stop being so weird! Changmin, I can _see_ you!”

Tittering, the boys scattered.

Kevin turned back to Jaemin with a pained face. “So. Tonight? But if you’re in a bad mood, it’s cool, maybe another time.”

Jaemin thought about Jeno, who was still in the hospital. Most nights after work, Jaemin would sneak into his room and snuggle with him in bed, because for some reason lately Jeno was having more nightmares than usual, but last night Jeno had pushed him away and told him to stop visiting so he wouldn’t have to go through the stressful trouble of infiltrating the hospital night after night. _I’m worried about you,_ Jeno had said, even though it couldn’t have been more than how worried Jaemin was for _him_.

Best friends did things like that. They worried about each other.

“Yeah, tonight sounds good,” Jaemin said, mustering a smile at the bartender. “I’m not in a bad mood, I’m just tense, is all. A night out with a friend might help me with that.”

“I don’t know if friend is the right word,” Kevin said.

The curl of hair on Kevin’s forehead was bothering Jaemin. Absently he reached up to brush it away for him. It was only after he put his hand back down that he realized the implication of what he’d just done.

If Kevin were Jeno, it would’ve been fine. Jaemin put his hands all over Jeno all the time and no one batted an eye—sometimes even Jaemin himself wasn’t aware of his own actions as he did them—but Kevin wasn’t Jeno, and he was now looking at Jaemin with a surprised and pleased glint in his eye.

“Oh. Uh. Okay, I’ll see you at midnight,” Jaemin said quickly, then left to go back to the dance floor.

There were no poles to dance on tonight, so Jaemin picked up the props of a cane and a bowler hat, because apparently retro was in style these days. He danced so hard and so long that by the time it was over, his hair was so wet it looked like he’d taken a shower. He dried off with his discarded shirt and started filing the tip money on his stage away into his backpack. He’d come a long way from his first night on the job when he’d walked in with nothing but his confidence and his old high school book bag—now, his designer backpack was outfitted with more than several lock and safety mechanisms, all to protect his earnings. Bambam and Jackson had shared multiple stories of them being mugged on the way home after work. Jaemin wasn’t going to be the next installment in that series of events.

He was admiring one of the bills he’d received, a handsome two-hundred, when he noticed something weird about it. Where the president’s face should have been was instead a cartoon depiction of a dead-eyed monster.

“Counterfeit,” Jaemin scowled.

The only problem was that he didn’t know which customer it had come from, so he had no one to hold accountable. Jaemin sighed and was about to tear the bill in half when something made him stop and take a closer look at the cartoon.

Accurate down to the fixed grimace, it was a fearsomely accurate portrayal of a deadman.

Jaemin narrowed his eyes.

“Do you like it?” whispered someone next to his ear, causing him to yelp and flail away. It was a stout woman with blue eyes, crouching down beside him with her arms wrapped around her knees and a smile fastened on her face. “It’s valuable.”

“This was you?” Jaemin said. “Who are you? This is imitation currency. I could have you arrested for fraud.”

“It’s not fraudulent,” snorted the woman. There was something weird about her face, but Jaemin couldn’t put his finger on it. Maybe it was all the teal lights getting to his brain, making him see funny things. “I got that from a conjunction. You know, a special secret government conjunction. They sent a special letter to my house inviting me to come and everything.”

“Huh,” Jaemin said, glancing down at the bill. _Yes, that is definitely a deadman’s face._ “If it’s so secret, why are you giving me this?”

“You look like you could keep a secret,” the woman cooed, scooting closer and taking Jaemin’s arm. Her skin felt dry and cold. “I like you so much, you know. I watch all your performances.”

“Uh,” Jaemin said. “Thank you for your sponsorship, I guess?”

“Jaemin? Jaemin!”

He had never been more relieved to hear Kevin Moon’s voice. He stood up, brushing the woman off. “Hey, Kevin. Great timing.”

Kevin was approaching, giving the lady a frown. “Ma’am, you’re not allowed to touch the dancers without their permission. Did you give her your permission, Jaemin?”

Jaemin shook his head. The woman, looking as if she’d just been scolded, exited the club in a hurry. The two men watched her go.

“I hate that they think they can get handsy just because it’s an erotic club,” Kevin sighed. “The strippers here don’t sell their bodies, they perform.”

“Yeah,” Jaemin said, stuffing the deadman bill into his backpack and pulling on a fresh shirt. “Whatever. So, where are we headed?”

Kevin led them out of the club, casually bumping the backs of their hands together before slipping his hand in Jaemin’s altogether. Jaemin didn’t even try to hide his smile. They turned the corner down the street, only to find that the woman was still there, loitering around. Kevin glared at her until she shied away and let them pass. 

It was because Jaemin was so pleasantly distracted with Kevin’s hand in his that it took him so long to realize what had been so weird about that woman. 

The woman’s face and hands and neck had been a pale shade of blue. All of her, blue. Even after she’d exited the club and its teal lasers, her skin had still carried that tinge—it was the unmistakable look of a corpse.

###

By the time Jeno was discharged from the hospital, he was itching to go do things. Go places. Eat solid food. _Do_ things. Mark picked him up in front of the ICU and drove him back to the mansion, cheerfully chatting the whole time about how good it was that Jeno was finally going home, he could finally get the comfort of sleeping in his own bed again, wouldn’t that be amazing? How did he feel? What did he want to eat? Mark would buy him any food he wanted.

 _As expected of the Best Big Brother,_ Jeno thought warmly.

“Chenle made cupcakes,” Mark said. “Welcome Home cupcakes. They’re kind of nasty, though. He tried to make them lime-flavored.”

If _Mark_ said they were nasty, then they were probably abysmal. “Yeah, haha,” Jeno said, switching the radio to a different channel. 

He was looking forward to returning home, but most of all he was apprehensive about seeing Renjun again. He hadn’t seen him in forever. Instead of being butt-hurt about it, Jeno had reasoned with himself that the boss was probably occupied trying to deal with the buzzing socialite aftermath of the catastrophe at the gala, which had made him just too busy to visit. Or, maybe Renjun just didn’t like hospitals.

Spending so much time in the ICU had given Jeno a chance to watch the plethora of TV shows that he’d never previously gotten around to—and if there was anything he’d learned from so many soap dramas, it was that psychological trauma was a very realistic rationale for why people decided to avoid clinical facilities. Did Renjun have some sort of psychological trauma?

“You’re grasping at straws,” Jaemin had said, when Jeno had tried to explain this theory to him. “I don’t know why Renjun hasn’t shown up to see you yet, especially when he was being so initially clingy.”

“What do you mean?” Jeno said. “Was he really worried, in the beginning?”

“In the beginning,” Jaemin had agreed. “Afterwards . . . well. I’m not sure what happened.”

That didn’t sound promising.

 _He’s got to have been worried about me,_ Jeno reasoned during the car ride back to the mansion. _I got stabbed. Anyone would be worried. Right?_

  
  


But although Chenle and Jisung and all of the mafia employees were waiting at the door to give Jeno a mini surprise welcome-back party, Renjun wasn’t there. Jeno was so preoccupied looking for him that he ate two of Chenle’s green cupcakes without even noticing or caring that they tasted like grass. When he got to his bedroom, setting his bags down on the floor with a soft sigh, he was greeted with the sight of Sana sitting cross-legged on his bed. 

“Lee!” she said, smiling broadly at him. “You’re here.”

“Hey,” Jeno said, uncertain. “How have you been? I like your new hair.”

“Oh, thanks,” Sana said, twirling a strand of her dark orange locks around a fingertip. “My sisters and I all decided to get new dye jobs a couple days ago. Pretty fresh, huh?”

“Yeah.” Jeno put his bag down by the door and shouldered off his jacket, placing it on the back of his desk chair. “Uh . . . did you need something?”

Sana held up an egg-shaped capsule. “Can I interest you in a card game?”

And so they ended up playing cards for approximately eight rounds. Sana wasn’t that good, and neither was Jeno, but he knew how to bluster his way through a game, and he won the majority of them. In no time at all, he had a whole hoard of hologram winner chips sitting on his side of the bed, while Sana’s pile was pitifully small.

She squinted at the set of available holo-cards that rotated slowly in the air in front of her. “Uh . . .”

Jeno sighed. “Okay, fine, Sana. I know you’re not here to play cards with me.”

“We can do something else instead if you like.”

“But like, why are you really here? Who put you up to this?”

“Look, it wasn’t my idea,” she grumbled, picking at one of her holo-chips.

“Whose was it?”

“Whose do you think?”

Jeno deflated.

“There’s no need to look so hurt,” Sana tried to say, but Jeno waved her off.

“He really thinks I need a babysitter, huh?”

“A bodyguard, actually. Five of my sisters have fallen ill lately, and the other three are taking care of those five, so even though I didn’t really want to take this job it was kind of my responsibility.” She reached up and tapped the egg capsule, causing the Holo-Chutes holograms to be suctioned one-by-one neatly back into their home. When it was done, the egg capsule fell back to the bed with a soft thump.

“Oh, are your sisters okay?” Jeno asked.

“Yeah, they’re tough. I’m sure they’ll be fine. But anyway, the whole bodyguard thing—the boss is just uptight lately and he doesn’t know how to channel that energy, so this is the best thing he could come up with.”

Jeno tried to keep himself from sighing. “A way to _channel that energy_ would be to stop avoiding me. For Christ’s sake. He’s got the worst set of communication skills I’ve ever seen.”

“Tell me about it,” she said. “Once, Jisung sprained his wrist, and Renjun went into Panicked Big Brother Mode, bought him eight different wrist braces, put them all in his room, paced anxiously by his bed, but left before Jisung could even wake up. It was so sad that it was funny.”

Jeno tried to imagine Renjun pacing anxiously. He cast the image out of his head, then asked if Sana wanted to watch a movie. So long as she was here, he might as well keep her entertained. 

###

In the meantime, Renjun was pacing anxiously.

He was in his bedroom, clicking his necklace pendant open and shut, and trying to remember how to stay calm. He knew consciously that there was no reason why he shouldn’t be calm. Jeno was more or less healed, and on top of that, he was _back_. Back here, in the mansion. Renjun should be celebrating.

“But he wouldn’t have left in the first place if not for you,” sighed Renjun to himself, then snapped his pendant shut with a _crack_ that was so loud it prompted him to stop and check that the necklace wasn’t broken entirely.

Two young boys smiled back at him from the tiny photograph within the locket. Renjun rubbed their faces with his thumb, but they and their happiness remained stubbornly unerased and unforgettable.

###

It took two days.

Until he and Jeno came face to face again, that is. Renjun had been hoping for a week at the very minimum, maybe two—imagine his horror when the confrontation happened prematurely, _and_ on Renjun’s office balcony, _and_ after one of the employees had locked the balcony door, leaving him stranded out there with none other than Jeno and Jeno’s godforsaken kitty cat. The iconic duo.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into her,” Jeno apologized, on his knees and trying to scoop up a mewling Bongsik. “I think it’s because I didn’t give her enough attention today? And she got all fussy but didn’t know how to express it so now she’s just playing hard to get.” He wrestled with the cat in his arms and muttered, “Well, well. That sounds like an awfully familiar situation.”

Renjun exhaled deeply through his nose. He would not rise to the bait. Maybe if he jumped off the balcony, he could escape this confrontation?

“Kitty, look.” Jeno finally grasped the cat around the chest and thrust her up in the air so she could see the entire dusky cityscape, shrouded in the sunset’s coral-colored air pollution. “Look at that. Do you want to fall off this balcony and plummet to your death? No, no you do not. Therefore it is better for you to stay here safe in my arms.”

The cat’s pupils were wide and round. She craned her head to look back at Jeno, who scoffed, then hugged her tight.

Renjun tried not to stare at them, although it was not like he was _jealous_ of a cat. “Hmph,” he muttered, turning away and knocking his fist on the door. “I can’t believe that glorified drug peddler Wong Kunhang locked us out here.” This was mutiny. 

“Just because he’s both a doctor and has a degree in pharmacy doesn’t mean he’s a—” Jeno shook his head. “Whatever. Can’t you just pick the lock, Jun?”

No, the mutinous one was Renjun’s heart. That _nickname_ . . .

“Picking the lock would be descending to Wong’s level,” he said. “I refuse to engage in petty crime.”

“It wouldn’t be a crime,” Jeno said. “And don’t you do that all the time anyway?”

Renjun opened his mouth to retort, but he didn’t have a reply. “Fine.”

Jeno stood there, as if waiting for him to pick the lock and let them in, but when Renjun made no move Jeno just sighed and sat down onto the concrete floor of the balcony and gazed out at the darkening city skyline.

Neither of them said anything for a while.

Jeno cleared his throat. “Was the gala aftermath a big mess? Politics-wise?”

“Yeah, but—” Renjun said. “Nothing I couldn’t handle.” Kim Hyuna probably wouldn’t be inviting him back to any parties anytime soon, though. In terms of almost being assassinated, Yang Hongseok hadn’t taken any legal action, which was a smart move on his part. It wouldn’t be easy to prove that he’d been attacked by an assassin, especially since he’d sustained no bodily harm and his only testimony that Donghyuck was even a hitman was that of Ko Shinwon. But because they had stabbed Jeno, Shinwon was guilty of something akin to manslaughter. To sum it up, no one in this fiasco was innocent, and no one was keen on taking legal action on anything anytime soon. 

“Jun.”

That nickname again. The familiarity of it was cloying. Renjun had to focus not to stammer. “What is it?”

“Why have you been avoiding me?” Jeno asked.

“What do you mean?” Renjun said. “I have been doing no such thing.”

“Yes you have.” Jeno sounded hurt. It made Renjun’s insides feel queasy. “Look, did I do something to set you off? Because if I did, you need to tell me. I hate when you get like this, all mafia bossy and distant and stuff. That’s not you. I know the real you.”

Bongsik pawed at Jeno’s knee. He shushed her.

“I don’t even know the real me,” Renjun said faintly.

He took a deep breath and prayed that whatever Jeno saw in him was worth something, because when this conversation was through and he had heard what he had to say, Jeno might very well might decide to walk away.

“You know why I’ve been avoiding you,” Renjun said. “I know you have to tell me something.”

Jeno tilted his head in that cute way of his. God, Renjun was going to miss that. “What is it that I have to tell you?”

Renjun steeled every nerve in his body. This was it. This was the crux of it all.

After this, everything would be over. 

“I know you want to resign.”

There was utter silence. It took Renjun a good three seconds before he’d mustered enough bravery to peek at Jeno’s face for his reaction.

Jeno’s jaw was hanging. It sort of gave the impression that he wanted to kill him. Or at least strangle him within an inch of death, Renjun didn’t know.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“I know! I know.” Renjun hugged his own arms to his chest. “I know and I get it. In the beginning, when you first started working here, I promised you that you wouldn’t have to do field work and that you’d be perfectly safe and everything, but things have changed, and you’ve just sustained an injury that nearly killed you. Jeno, you don’t deserve a life of peril. You deserve happiness and safety and security, and I can’t offer you any of that. So—so that’s why I’m prepared to accept your letter of resignation, whenever it might be coming my way, because I do know and acknowledge that it’s due soon—hey. Wait. Hold on, why are you laughing at me?”

Jeno was doubled over, slapping his knee so hard that the cat beside him looked alarmed.

“You’re kidding me,” he gasped. “You—oh my God.”

Renjun bristled. “Stop making me feel like an idiot.”

“That’s because that’s what you _are_! I can’t believe you! You thought I was going to—to resign? Is that why you’ve been avoiding me like the plague for the past week?”

Renjun didn’t know how to tell him that yes, _yes_ , he had been trying to stall and give himself a little more time. Just a little, before he lost Jeno forever.

“Forget it,” he muttered, turning away. “Come talk to me again when you’re taking me seriously.”

Mirth gone, Jeno surged up and grabbed his shoulder. “Wait, no. Stay.”

Renjun stayed still, but he didn’t turn around.

“I missed you,” Jeno said tenderly from behind him. “I had no idea why you weren’t visiting me in the hospital, or why you’d assigned Sana to be my bodyguard, or why you were acting so distant. I thought you were angry with me.”

“I wasn’t—”

“I don’t want to resign,” Jeno said, punctuating each word. “I haven’t even thought about it. I’m not even considering it as a valid possibility.”

“But—” _But you should be._

“You’ve somehow convinced yourself that I regret taking that switchblade. And to be honest, it hurt like hell. But when I agreed to work alongside you, I was fully aware of the danger I’d be facing every day, and I still did it. Why did I do it?” His grip softened on Renjun’s shoulder. “Why do you think?”

“Hmm. Because you were bound by contract.”

“ _No._ I mean, maybe our relationship was about the contract in the beginning.” Jeno took Renjun’s hand. “But what is it now? What is it about now?”

Renjun blinked, and slowly turned around to look at Jeno face to face.

He couldn’t recall a time Jeno had been this serious, this firm. It seemed like their roles had been switched. Usually Renjun was the severe one, but right now he was being the insecure one, eyes wide, throat dry, assurances needed. 

Jeno had always been the patient one. The kind one. No matter if Renjun was acting severe or insecure or bitchy or dangerous or even all of the above at the same time, Jeno’s loyalty was unchanging. Renjun wanted him to have a life of happiness and stability, but—hell, maybe Renjun himself already _had_ that life, all along. Like this. With Jeno.

 _I love you_. The words pressed against his tongue, begging to be spoken. 

“So you’re not going to resign,” was what he said.

With a fond sigh, Jeno let go of him and settled back into a sitting position. “Of course not, Renjun.”

Renjun bit his tongue to keep from smiling too much. 

They sat in comfortable silence for a while. Renjun sat down next to him, knee-to-knee, and deigned to give Bongsik a triumphant pat. The cat headbutted upward into his touch.

“You know,” Jeno said conspiratorially, “I heard their purring has healing properties.”

“Is that so?”

“Wanna hold her? Here.” 

Renjun tried to protest, but then Jeno was settling the cat in his lap, cooing at how she automatically tucked in her paws to make herself small and rested her chin on Renjun’s thigh. “Look at her tail,” Jeno fawned. “Look at it, it’s so fluffy. Is she purring? Can you feel it?”

“Take her back.” Renjun opened his legs and the cat, disgruntled by the abrupt disappearance of the cozy nook, went back over to Jeno. “Aren’t you afraid of her falling off the balcony? Is it safe for her to be up here?”

“She’s a very smart lady,” Jeno said. “She knows better than to jump off the roof. And anyway, cats have nine lives or something, right?”

 _If I were a cat, I’d spend all nine lives with you_ , he wanted to add, but he didn’t think Jeno was ready for that yet, and also he was kind of mortified at himself for even thinking something so cheesy. “You believe in that stuff?” he said, trying to bluster past his own internal embarrassment.

“I believe in a lot of stuff.”

“I bet you secretly make wishes on stars or something.”

“I’ve never seen the stars,” Jeno admitted. “Sometimes I wonder if they even exist.”

Renjun was quiet for a moment. “The sun’s a star,” he eventually said. “You’ve seen the sun.”

Jeno snorted. “That’s not what I mean.”

“Then what do you mean?”

“I dunno, I just think it’d be pretty. Chenle went through a huge astronomy nerd phase, he would read up on constellations and then tell me and Mark about it, and once he taped a piece of pinpricked black tissue paper to our window so that the sun shone through and made constellations. It was so fucking pretty, Renjun.” Jeno sighed, gazing out at the sky with its final few clouds.

“If you care about it that much . . .” Renjun murmured under his breath.

“Hmm?”

“Nothing.” Renjun got up. “It’s nothing.”

They went back inside after he picked the lock. He was glad he hadn’t picked it from the beginning—it had been a good decision on his part.

###

Jeno was eating spicy rice cake alone in the kitchen when Jisung wandered in, eyes bloodshot and hair mussed. As if he didn’t even see Jeno, he plopped down in a chair and laid his head down on his arms.

Jeno shoveled a spoonful of rice cake into his mouth and finished chewing before asking, “Everything okay?”

Jisung startled so bad he almost fell out of his chair. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“It’s kinda late,” Jeno said. “Why are you still up? It’s a weeknight.”

Jisung groaned. “Do you want the long story or the short one?”

“Either.”

“Yangyang was playing with the race car simulation machine that he has in his bedroom, and he somehow managed to make me play too,” Jisung said. “And I got carried away and played for four hours straight and didn’t do any of my homework and forgot that Chenle and I were supposed to have a date night.”

Jeno’s brows shot up. “Uh-oh.”

“But that’s not the worst part. Lele didn’t even act mad. He was just disappointed.”

That was worse indeed. Jeno set down his spoon with a small clink. “How are you going to make it up to him?”

“I don’t know. The problem is, _this_ date was supposed to be the makeup date for the one that I missed last week.” Jisung ran a hand through his hair. “Oh my God. Am I a flake? Is that what I am?”

He looked so distraught that Jeno couldn’t even be angry. He just sighed and pushed the bowl of rice cake over at Jisung in a silent gesture of support.

The teenager wolfed the whole thing down and scraped the sauce off the bottom, too. Then he got up, went over to the still-simmering pot on the stove, and scooped more rice cake into the bowl.

“Love is a little difficult, huh?” Jeno said. 

“Yeah,” Jisung mumbled. “I thought I was the problem, but maybe it’s also Chenle too? He wants us to have dates literally all the time. And not just doing homework together, but like, going out of our way to do boyfriend things like eating out or going to the arcade. It’s like he’s still trying to establish the fact that we’re together. When we’ve been together for so long!”

“Has he told you that he thinks you two still need to do activities to establish your dating status?” Jeno asked.

“Well,” Jisung said. “No. But I just get a feeling. And at first all the dates were nice, but in the long term they’re just too much, and I feel like I never have free time and my grades are falling and we’re just getting tired of each other.”

That made sense. But although Jeno could see Jisung’s perspective, Jeno was also Chenle’s brother, and had spent seventeen years learning the way he ticked. “Spending quality time with someone is how Lele communicates his affection,” Jeno told him gently. “He won’t know how you’re feeling until you speak up. I bet he thinks that you’re the one being hard to handle.”

“But it’s him too! Sometimes he won’t even let me cuddle with him. It’s more like all the time, actually. I try to hug him and he just squirms away. I take his hand and he slips out of it. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“Clearly he doesn’t know how much physical affection means to you. And he won’t know, until you tell him. I think you guys are just having a communication error.”

Jisung threw him a look. “Sorry, but you can’t talk. You and the boss have a terrible communication record.”

“I actually made up with him last night,” Jeno said. “But don’t turn this back on me. This is about you and my little brother.” He jabbed his spoon at him. “You two need to talk things out between yourselves, so that such a small thing like love language disparity doesn’t spiral into heartbreak and shit. Got it?”

A moment passed. “Got it,” Jisung said. “But . . . well, I don’t really like confrontation that much.”

Jeno had to refrain from rolling his eyes. “No one does. But confrontation is like, the proverbial vegetables of every relationship. You have to eat your vegetables before you can enjoy the rest of the meal.”

“Chenle _is_ a full-course meal,” Jisung said seriously.

“Oh my God, please never say that again.”

“He’s a meal and meals come with vegetables.” Jisung looked thoughtful. “And even though no one likes vegetables, I still have to work with them so we can be healthy. Yes. Yes, that’s it.”

“I’m glad you understand,” Jeno said, nibbling at some more rice cake.

The mansion’s intercom crackled for a moment, and then Renjun’s voice came through the line. Jisung and Jeno both looked up at the loudspeaker as words began to flow from it. 

“ _Jeno, please report to the roof. You can take the elevator and press the top floor. It’ll take you right there._ ”

“But my working hours are over,” Jeno said through a full mouth.

“ _This isn’t a matter of work. I’ve prepared something that I think you’ll like._ ”

Jisung made a suggestive face. Jeno laughed at him and set his dishes into the sink to wash later. Even after all this time, he still had the bad habit of not washing his dishes right away. “I’m coming, I’m coming,” he said, and the loudspeaker crackled again, signalling the end of the call.

“I wonder what the boss might have _prepared_ ,” Jisung said, grinning greasily at Jeno over his bowl.

“Hush, child,” Jeno said, sweeping past him. He stopped at the door. “Oh. By the way, you better not flake on my brother again. Capisce?”

“I don’t know what that means, but yes. I will flake no more.”

“Alright, good. Now don’t go to bed too late.”

With that, Jeno left the kitchen to go upstairs.

  
  


By the time he made it to the roof, he was thoroughly questioning why Renjun had called him up here. It wasn’t like he’d given him any clues or anything. He’d only ever been up to the roof once, when he’d been waiting for a carrier pigeon from Ten to arrive.

Stifling a yawn, Jeno exited the elevator not knowing what to expect.

What he saw stunned him.

He had to take a step backward to really grasp what he was looking at. And once he did, it was all he could do to stare the sky, which was entirely and completely chock-full of shining silver. It took him a moment to realize it was stars. They were _stars_. Visible ones.

“Renjun,” Jeno whispered, whipping around to find the other male, standing nearby with his hands clasped behind his back. “Oh my—Renjun, Renjun, _Renjun_.”

A laugh. “Yeah?”

Not trusting himself to say anything, Jeno plopped down onto the rooftop and leaned his back flat against the roof, his eyes roving across the night sky. God, it was gorgeous, an entire blanket full of stars studded across satiny darkness. Like this, they looked like tiny faraway fireflies, so much more real than the pinpricks of light that Chenle had poked into that piece of tissue paper. Jeno almost couldn’t believe he was seeing this— _too good to be true_ , he thought.

Renjun settled down beside him. “That good, huh?”

“I can’t breathe,” Jeno said, and Renjun immediately turned to him with a look of concern. “No, no,” he added quickly, “not a panic attack. It’s like, happy. A—a _happiness_ attack? It’s so good, I just. I can’t.”

Renjun nodded a little. “I see.”

Jeno grabbed his hand, laced their fingers together, and used their conjoined hands to point up at the sky. “There, you can see Orion’s belt. Those three stars, there? Holy shit, they’re so clear.” He moved their hands over slightly upward. “And you can see the Big Dipper too, that’s the little thing that looks like a ladle. Chenle was always so frustrated with how apparently, the constellations don’t make actual pictures and you have to sorta use your imagination to fill in the blanks.” Jeno let out a happy sigh. “But I think it’s better this way. This way, you can assemble constellations in your head any way you like. Like a create-your-own version of connect the dots.”

“Mmm,” Renjun said.

“How did you even . . . how did you even _do_ all this? This was you, right?”

“Of course it was me. I talked Jung Yoonoh into weaning his color factories off production so the smog would clear up in time for tonight, and this morning I talked the city officials into dimming the city power lines to reduce light pollution just for the next eighteen hours. Of course it’s not like that’ll erase all the light pollution that’s been building up for centuries, but it’s the best I could do.”

Jeno eyed him. “When you say you talked them into this stuff, you mean you bribed them, don’t you?”

Renjun let out a huff, lowering their conjoined hands down to the roof. “Yes, well, what did you expect? You said you wanted to see the stars. And anyhow, it’s your birthday today, so I thought it would make a good gift.” He rubbed his thumb along Jeno’s palm.

“My birthday? Today? Wait.” He racked his head. “Oh, _right_. But I thought that was tomorrow.”

“It’s past midnight, so technically it’s today. Wow, my lieutenant doesn’t even remember his own birthday.”

“Hey, it’s not like anyone reminded me or anything.” It was possible that his brothers and friends were planning to throw a surprise party sometime soon, but then again, he didn’t know. “I don’t think anyone’s ever done anything this big for my birthday gift before, Renjun. How much did this even cost?”

“The price doesn’t matter,” Renjun said.

That sounded suspicious. “You didn’t send us into bankruptcy, did you?”

“No, of course not.”

Satisfied by that, Jeno smiled up at the sky, letting his gaze skim across it. They lay in companionable silence for a while.

“This is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Jeno said.

“Same,” Renjun said, his voice soft in a way it rarely was.

Jeno glanced over, only to feel a jolt when he saw the other was already looking at him. 

He swallowed. _Did he just_ — “That was cheesy.” 

“I know,” Renjun said, squeezing Jeno’s hand a little.

“Is this the end of it, then? The end of you ignoring . . . us?”

“It depends on what you want,” Renjun said. “I don’t want to do anything that you don’t want.”

“Oh God,” Jeno mumbled. “I want to kiss you.”

“Because, you know, consent is a very important part of a relationship, whether it be friendship or romance or otherwise—wait, what did you say?”

“I want to _kiss_ you.” Jeno sat up and scooted toward him. “Can I kiss you? Do I have your consent?”

Renjun blinked, sitting up as well. “Uh. Yeah, sure. Go ahead.”

“Uh yeah sure,” Jeno teased. “What’s this? Where did your eloquence go?”

In response, the boss just leaned in.

Renjun’s lips were slightly chapped, but cool and soft. It was starkly different from the first kiss they’d shared, the one in the alleyway—that had been all desperation and fire, but _this_ was vanilla, the gentlest of vanilla. Renjun’s mouth moved carefully, almost shyly, as if he were giving time for Jeno to pull away.

To test the waters, Jeno leaned back just a tad. He got the reaction he’d expected; Renjun broke the kiss and moved away fast, putting an ample amount of space between them.

He looked terrified. 

“Sorry,” he blurted. “Did I—fuck, I’m sorry.”

Jeno reached for him, glad when the other allowed himself to be pulled closer. “No,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you that you don’t have to kiss me so lightly. I’m not made of glass.”

Realization flickered in Renjun’s eyes at the reference, and then something else filled his gaze. Something hungry, aching.

A searing thrill went down Jeno’s spine. His toes curled. “You can do whatever you want to me,” he said.

“Be careful what you say,” Renjun replied, voice low.

“I’m not afraid of you.” Jeno’s fingers pressed into his hips, tugging him forward into his lap. “I know you won’t hurt me.”

“Good,” Renjun whispered, knees settling on either side of Jeno’s waist. The proximity was intoxicating, charged with intensity. “It’s good you know that.”

Jeno tilted his chin up and met his mouth first. Renjun made a pretty noise and all but melted against him, arms winding around his neck. They kissed for a while like that, just exploring each other’s mouths the way Jeno had been dying to do all these painful days ever since that one stolen kiss in the alleyway, until Renjun’s hand found its way to the hem of Jeno’s shirt and rucked it up a bit. Jeno nodded a little into the kiss to let him know it was okay. 

“You taste like rice cake,” Renjun mumbled, when they stopped to breathe.

“You taste like—I don’t know, but I like it,” Jeno said, beginning to nose down Renjun’s jaw. “I like you, Renjun. I like you so much.”

“Mmm,” replied the boss, tilting his neck back. “More.”

“Want more?”

“No. I mean, yes. Yes I want more but I mean, what I meant to say was—I like you more.”

Inwardly amazed at the fact that he had the power to make Renjun this flustered, Jeno pecked both of Renjun’s cheeks, chuckling a little.

“You’re blushing.”

Renjun sighed. “That’s what happens when your crush kisses you, yes.”

Jeno’s heart stuttered. Hearing a youthful word like that coming from Renjun was a new experience.

“Am I your crush?” 

Renjun rolled his eyes, but his cheeks darkened more. “Yeah, you bozo. Why? You got a problem with that?”

He was so cute, Jeno just _had_ to kiss him some more. 

After a while, he reached Renjun’s ear where it met his neck and began to pull down the collar of his turtleneck with his teeth, noting the little shiver that went through him. He wondered if Renjun would be okay with him leaving marks. Would he be into that? There was so much in terms of Renjun’s preferences that he didn’t know, so much that he couldn’t wait to learn.

But as he was pulling down the rest of Renjun’s turtleneck’s collar and glimpsed what lay underneath, he stopped in his tracks.

A tight, ugly emotion formed inside his gut.

_Holy fuck._

“Hey,” Renjun whispered, nudging Jeno a bit. “Hey, it’s okay.”

“It’s not,” Jeno snapped, looking at the mass of bruises that covered Renjun’s neck and jaw. “It’s not, it’s not. I love Donghyuck but sometimes he’s such an absolute ass.”

“I deserved it.” Renjun leaned in to try and kiss him, but Jeno tilted away to deny him access. He moved Renjun’s hand from his back to his front and used it to pull his shirt up, exposing the still-healing scar of the suture marring his abdomen. When Renjun saw, the line of his mouth went tight. 

“Look,” Jeno said. “If you deserved what happened to you, then do I deserve this?”

“Of course not.”

“Yeah, so don’t talk like that.” He tried to put his shirt down, but Renjun’s touch lingered.

“Does it still hurt?” he asked softly.

“Only if I strain it,” Jeno said. “I just have to be careful.”

“How do I know you’re not downplaying your pain?”

“You can’t talk,” Jeno said. “You downplay your pain all the time. Tell me honestly, did you get whiplash when Donghyuck hit you?”

“Well, that’s in the past. My neck feels fine right now.”

Jeno frowned. 

“You could kiss it better,” Renjun said coyly.

And so he did just that.

###

It was near morning when they finally climbed back into the mansion and went back to each of their respective rooms. Jeno tucked himself into bed and put on his favorite frog-patterned pajamas. Jaemin wasn’t back from work yet, which meant he had a little time to himself before then.

He decided to call Renjun’s number.

The boss picked up on the second ring. “Jeno, we literally saw each other twenty minutes ago.”

“I know,” Jeno said, squishing his face into his pillow. “I missed you.”

A smiling sigh came from the other side of the line. 

“Hey Jun. Can I call you Jun? I guess I never asked permission to.”

“Go ahead,” Renjun said. “Consent with nicknames is also something I appreciate.”

Jeno smiled at the wall. “But I don’t specifically remember you being so particular about consent when you kissed me without warning that first time in the alleyway.”

“Oh.” Was that a hitch in Renjun’s voice? “That was done out of necessity. I meant to apologize for it. I just—”

“No! No, I actually liked it. It was hot.”

“Oh, okay.” A pause. “That’s still no excuse for my actions. I’ll be on better behavior from now on.”

Jeno smiled at that and wondered how he should go about asking about the reason why Renjun’s kiss in the alleyway had felt so full of despair. It was only after he hung up and curled up in bed to go to sleep that he thought maybe, just maybe, Renjun had kissed that way because he’d been trying to tell Jeno just how much he liked him. To tell him that he’d buy the stars for him.

The thought filled him with warmth. 

###

_“Jeno, where have you been?” Warm arms enveloped him. “You had me worried sick.”_

_Usually Jeno would hug his older brother back, but right now he just stared blankly above Mark’s shoulder. “What do you mean?”_

_“You’ve been missing all day!” Mark pulled back, searching Jeno’s face. The last he had seen of him, he’d left in the morning to take a walk in the park with his friend, and now it was near midnight and Jeno had only just now appeared at the doorstep. “You didn’t answer your phone. I texted you a million times. I was about to call the police!”_

_“Hmm,” Jeno said._

_Mark checked around, but there was no one anywhere else in sight. “Where’s Jun?”_

_“Where’s who?”_

_“Renjun.”_

_Minor confusion flickered across Jeno’s brow. “I don’t know a Renjun.”_

_Bewildered, Mark shook his head. The two kids must have fought or something. Mark reached up to touch Jeno’s wet hair and hissed when it stung his fingers. “I told you to bring an umbrella today. Looks like the rain was acidic, huh? Did you take shelter like I taught you to?”_

_“I don’t remember any rain,” Jeno said mildly._

_From that night on, Jeno never mentioned Renjun again._

###

Renjun emerged from his morning shower, wearing nothing but a pair of black jeans with a towel around his neck to keep his wet hair from dripping all over his chest. As soon as he stepped back into his bedroom, he noticed something odd—the room smelled like the color nxi, a mix between dark green and heathered pink, which was definitely not part of his cologne repertoire. None of his employees wore that scent.

Later, he would curse himself for not immediately being alarmed, but his mind was fuzzy from both the relaxing warmth of the shower as well as from his memories of last night. Kissing Jeno on a roof and underneath a sky full of stars . . . it felt like a dream come true. Renjun could die happy.

They’d kissed for _hours_.

Humming, he stepped in front of his full-length mirror to towel off his hair. On his nightstand was his pendant, the one he seldom removed. He was reaching for it when all of the sudden there was a polite cough.

He whipped around. A young woman sat on his bed, legs crossed at the ankles and head tilted at a jaunty angle. She had a long, loose mane of silvery-white hair, one that lent her a deceptively soft look that contrasted the hardness on her face.

“Well, well, well,” she said.

“How did you get in here?” he demanded, conscious that he had no weapons on him at the moment. “Who are you?”

“Hwang Yeji.” She shrugged. “Guess your mansion isn’t as secure as you like to think it is. Yong did say you were getting soft these days.”

Renjun’s heart thudded. _Taeyong._ In between being so worked up about Jeno’s injury and then being so breathlessly enchanted by the way Jeno had looked underneath all those stars, Renjun had forgotten all about the rival mafia boss’s threats. It’d been a week since his proverbial deadline, since when he’d promised to exterminate Mark, and really in hindsight Renjun was quite lucky that Taeyong hadn’t already sent Yeji to come for him sooner.

How could Renjun have been so stupid?

Yeji got to her feet. “I’m sorry, Huang, but you’re going to have to come with me.”

“Wait,” he said, backing up. The pendant in his hand clattered to the floor. “Wait, wait, no. You can’t.” 

He couldn’t let himself be taken away. Not like this, not after all the progress he’d _finally_ _fucking_ _made_ with his relationship with Jeno—

“It’s not a choice,” she said. She spoke politely. Cordiality was always the sign of someone who knew they were going to win this fight, hands-down. “Your only destiny is the stripes, I’m afraid.”

Renjun threw himself at her, fist swinging, but only managed a good hit to her chin before she swept his legs out from under him. From what he could remember, Yeji was the same age as him, but it seemed like she was far more experienced in hand-to-hand combat than he, and _that_ was saying something. He landed on his back with a thump. He tried to shout for help, but she pressed the toe of one of her stilettos against his lips, then rested the other shoe in a light but threatening pressure against his throat. He didn’t move, too afraid she’d crush his wind box entirely.

Yeji reached into her vest pocket and pulled out a bottle of perfume. It was in the hue of nxi.

 _What does she think she’s going to accomplish with that?_ Renjun scoffed internally. She leaned down and pumped four quick sprays right into his face. At first, he gagged at the smell—nxi had never been his favorite—but after a moment he became aware of a distinctive burning sensation all across his cheeks, eyelids, and nostrils. The perfume was eating at his _skin_.

“What—what the hell,” he wheezed, trying his best not to breathe in the substance. Black holes had appeared in his vision.

“Meet the boss’s boyfriend’s newest invention,” Yeji said, spritzing more. “A weaponized color.”

The perfume hurt like fiery hell. Renjun’s vision was rapidly fading to black. “You won’t get away with this,” he choked.

The darkness enclosed him in entirety. The last thing he saw was Yeji’s face, her pretty mauve lips curved in a small smile.

“I already have.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes another cliffhanger lol i regret nothing
> 
> Btw Renjun’s mansion is based off the dreamhouse in the tv show Barbie Life In The Dreamhouse asdfdsaj i wanted to add the Inspired By Barbie tag to this fic, but it’s not a real tag. someone please make it official i will send u like 6 boxes of chicken nuggets as gratitude.
> 
> “Sorry this chapter is so late the author’s bitch ass cousins wouldn’t leave her alone” - bitch ass cousin 
> 
> ~ Yerin 062020


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I wrote a Doyu (dota?) (doyoung x yuta) [one shot](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24758623) that’s set in the crimeful universe eheheh u can read it if u wanttttt
> 
> ~ Yerin 062920

For the longest time, Jungwoo had grown up thinking he’d become a doctor. It seemed like the ideal career path: stable, noble, and equipped with a healthy income. In college he’d majored in psychology, but after about two years of that, he found himself with a peculiar urge to stray from the path. It probably had to do with how all the things he learned seemed absolutely useless in the long run.

And so he changed his major to law. Jungwoo had never once thought that his name in the industry would rise large enough to overshadow his mother’s, who was a lawyer as well, but while not many knew her name, practically everyone knew who he was. Who he and his fellow Crawlers were.

That is, if you asked the right people. Jungwoo’s mother didn’t know about how her son all but aided and abetted criminal behavior. And it was none of anyone’s business if she didn’t know. Jungwoo did a good job of keeping his private and professional lives separate, except for a certain few variables that managed to consistently worm his way through the chink in his armor.

The variables were named Qian Kun and Wong Yukhei, and currently they were draped all over Jungwoo’s living room couch, stuffing cheese puffs in their mouths and criticizing the logistics of a detective movie streaming on the TV.

“SHE’S SO DUMB,” Yukhei said, spraying crumbs around. “JUST LOOK AT HER. THE CULPRIT IS OBVIOUSLY RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER.”

Kun shook his head. “No, dum-dum, that’s not the culprit. I’m willing to bet that our protagonist detective was the culprit all along. Doesn’t you see that the gingham of her shirt is the same as the gingham threads they found at the crime scene?”

“You guys are both wrong,” Jungwoo said with a sigh as he grabbed his holo-vacuum to clean up the carpet. “What about the protagonist’s sidekick? He’s wearing the gingham too.”

“WELL, YEAH, THAT’S BECAUSE IT’S THEIR _UNIFORM_ ,” Yukhei pointed out.

“A little quieter, Xuxi,” Kun said. He crunched on a cheese puff. “Hey, Woo, why don’t we have a uniform? With a nice logo and everything?”

“Because you’d get it all filthy with your filthiness and we’d have to wash it twice a day to maintain a presentable facade,” Jungwoo said.

“I’m not filthy,” Kun protested. “I took out the trash last night even though it was Yukhei’s turn, remember?”

“IT WASN’T MY TURN,” Yukhei interjected. “I MEAN—it wasn’t my turn. Pretty sure it was Woo’s.”

“You guys are freeloaders,” Jungwoo said. “Why don’t we open up one of those nice corporate offices so we can have an official place to run business and attract clients, yeah? Rather than meet with them in all kinds of shady neighborhoods and garages because we don’t have our own fucking edifice.”

“But shady is what we _do_ ,” Kun said, then squinted at the TV. “Okay, no, I’m pretty sure the protagonist is the culprit.”

He was wrong, and Jungwoo knew it. Maybe all those psychology classes had actually paid off in the long run—it made it easy to detect the villain in the movies (if there was even a villain at all). All he had to do was pay attention to the script, to the body language. These days he was beginning to suspect that part of the reason why he made such a great lawyer was because of his psychology background.

“Oh hey guys,” he said. “I just remembered something. Did either of you get around to listening to the voicemail we got from the mafia of New America?”

“No,” Kun said, tilting the cheese puffs bag to get the rest of the chips out. “I thought you were doing that. What about you, Xuxi?”

“No, I thought _you_ were doing that.”

“I did it,” Jungwoo grumbled.

“Great. I knew we could count on you. So what did Huang want? Unless it was the other syndicate, the Lee one?”

“No, it was Huang. I mean, it was Huang’s lieutenant who called. Apparently, Lee Taeyong is planning to put him in prison? The abduction stage is already complete.”

Yukhei made a face. Kun looked impressed.

“Wow. The last time any mafia leader landed themselves in stripes was Victoria Song of mainland China,” Kun said. “Are you sure that’s what Huang’s lieutenant said, Jungwoo? That sounds out of character. Lee Taeyong was very nice the last time I encountered him.”

“Yeah, well.” People were usually nice when they wanted something, Jungwoo had discovered long ago. He wasn’t sure what the beef was between Taeyong and Renjun and he wasn’t really keen on getting involved either. “Huang’s lieutenant is offering a very nice sum in exchange for one of our services in the courtroom.”

“Did he request any of us specifically?” Yukhei asked.

“No.” The lieutenant on the phone call had sounded distracted, almost panicked—as if he were falling apart on the other side of the line. “He just said to send our best.”

“That’s me,” said both Kun and Yukhei at the same time, then turned to each other with reproachful glances.

“My English is the best out of all of us,” Yukhei pointed out before the older could say anything. “And I was just in America last week. I’d be best adjusted to the jet lag. You hate jet lag, Kun, you wouldn’t be good for this job.” He puffed his chest out. “This case has my name all over it.”

Kun rolled his eyes. “You egoist. My portion of our company’s paycheck has been way too small lately. I need this case so I can pay my bills.”

“Ha! You earn six figures like the rest of us. And you mooch off Woo all the time!”

“Because he’s a good friend and he lets me!”

Jungwoo wasn’t paying attention to either of them, too busy thinking about the situation at hand. If a mafia boss was getting another mafia boss in stripes . . . well, that sounded messy. He didn’t know if Yukhei would be able to handle it on his own. Jungwoo was a slightly more experienced lawyer, anyway.

With a small exhalation he resigned himself to his fate. He hadn’t been to America in a couple months, and his English skills were indeed getting kind of rusty. “I ought to come with you, Yukhei. Business here in Indonesia is a little slow anyway, and I think Kun can handle the local cases on his own. Right, Kun?”

Kun sputtered. Yukhei looked immensely satisfied.

“Fine,” Kun finally said. “Forget it. You two go have fun without me.”

“I’ll bring you back a souvenir,” Yukhei said, getting off the couch and shooting finger-guns. “To America!”

“To America,” Jungwoo repeated mournfully.

###

_Day three_ , Jeno thought. _Soon to be day four._

He was downstairs in one of the mansion’s office lounges, poring over an obscenely large stack of paperwork. Pens were scattered all around him, several of them uncapped and accidentally stuck between the couch cushions. On the coffee table in front of him was a bowl of cold soup so congealed that the spoon was sticking straight up out of it, just like the cowlick in Jeno’s unruly hair. It was dyed dark brown.

He was so focused on the paperwork in front of him that he didn’t even notice the lounge door opening. A familiar figure slipped in, stood there for several seconds waiting to be acknowledged, then coughed into their fist to make their presence known.

Jeno looked up blearily. “Oh. Hey, Mark.”

“Hey,” his older brother said, surveying the mess in front of the younger. He set down a bowl of fresh hot soup, then picked up the old one and placed it atop the stack of old untouched soup bowls already compiling in the corner of the table. “It’s just like the doctor suspected. You and Renjun really share the same brain cell.”

“Thanks for the food,” was all Jeno mumbled as he flipped past a page. 

“How about we take a break?” It was Kunhang, entering the lounge with a forced smile. “How does some bubble tea sound?”

“No offense, but boba sounds kind of unnecessary right now.” Jeno used his pen to circle something on the paper. _Day three. Tomorrow will be day four._ Four days since Renjun had been kidnapped, four days since Jeno had woken up to find the employees in chaos with Momo unconscious in the hospital ward and Renjun gone without a trace other than his circular pendant lying abandoned on his bedroom floor.

Kunhang and Mark traded a glance. “Jen, don’t you love boba?” Mark said.

“Never mind that,” Kunhang said. “Why are you doing all this paperwork?”

“Because Renjun isn’t here to do it, obviously,” Jeno replied.

“I understand that, but why aren’t you doing it on your computers and holo-pads?” Kunhang said. “The boss pretty much outlawed the use of paper as an interface here. It’s all electronic now.”

“All of my devices ran out of battery hours ago, and I can’t sit around waiting for them to recharge.” Jeno frowned down at the expanse of table in front of him. “So here I am. With the dreaded sliced up trees.”

Every once in a while he had the urge to just grab a fistful of papers and crumple them up, or the desire to furiously fold a thousand paper cranes so he could wish on them for Renjun’s return. But they were past wishes now. The only people who could save him were the Crawlers, who were due to arrive any day from their flight from Indonesia. And until they arrived, Jeno was helpless.

He let out a soft sigh. 

“I feel so stranded,” he finally admitted to the older men in the room. “Why didn’t—why didn’t Renjun tell me that Taeyong had been threatening him? I literally had to loot through Jun’s business journals to find the reason why he’d been kidnapped.”

He’d found a small paragraph of unassuming handwriting that swiftly described how Taeyong had ordered Renjun to destroy Mark, _or else_ . Renjun had written the _or else_ in gratuitous quotation marks, implying that he was directly quoting and perhaps mocking the other mafia boss. Jeno couldn’t imagine why Renjun would’ve been so cavalier about it. Shouldn’t he have been afraid? Hadn’t he taken it seriously? Maybe it was that he believed his mansion to be impenetrable? Above all, how had the mansion been penetrated in the first place? Meaning, how had the abductor even wormed her way inside?

“The nightmares are back,” Jeno said miserably, hugging his own upper arms. “This time, though, I’m not even sure what they’re about.” No longer were the dreams solely focused on that one childhood day, bloodied by rain and gore. Rather, the dreams were pale and shapeless, wrought with the intense feeling of something being _wrong_. And in each of them, Jeno was beginning to be able to glimpse the face of the mystery boy. The boy who was something like a soulmate to him.

It was too much to think about. He was only twenty-two and had no mental capacity for any of this—he knew nothing about what it meant to be in love, just that he liked Renjun a lot, liked his wit and quiet kindness and sarcasm and occasional stupidity that led to him getting carried away to some prison. _Stripes_ , the paragraph in Renjun’s business paragraph had said. Jeno knew what stripes meant.

“Come on, Jeno,” Mark said, taking Jeno’s wrist and pulling him upright. “You need to take a break. How about we go check on how Momo’s doing, yeah?”

“She’s recovering pretty well,” said Kunhang helpfully. “The wounds she sustained were nowhere near lethal. Basically just a few flesh wounds. She confessed that she thinks Yeji went easy on her.” He checked his watch. “Oh no, the tea must be done steeping by now. Don’t want it to become too strong, do we? I better go take care of it.”

He left the room with a meaningful look at Mark that Jeno didn’t pick up on at all. Neither did Mark, if the confused head tilt was anything to judge by. After a moment of standing there, he reached up to awkwardly pat the younger’s back.

Jeno let out a small noise and leaned forward. He lacked the energy to lift his arms, so instead of a hug he just let his head fall against his older brother’s shoulder.

 _They want to kill you_ , Jeno thought at him, as if maybe he could communicate this crucial and terrifying information through his thoughts alone. _Lee Taeyong wants to kill you and Renjun didn’t let him and that’s what led to all of this._

“You’ve been stressed,” Mark murmured. “I know these times are hard. But we’ll get Renjun back, okay? Once the girls of the nonet squadron recover from their flu, we’ll hatch a plan together with them and get him back.” 

“Don’t lie for me,” Jeno whispered. At the older’s stunned silence, he leaned back. “You hate lying. I know it won’t be easy to get Renjun back, if—if at all.”

Mark faltered. “I know . . . but still.”

“Still what?” Jeno said, with a tiny shrug. “There’s nothing to be done.” He wasn’t a mastermind strategist. He didn’t know how to track Renjun down or how to strike back against Taeyong in a way that would be effective. He was just Jeno. Just Jeno.

“Hey, Mark.”

“Yeah?”

“It was my birthday,” Jeno said quietly, feeling foolish even as the words passed his lips. And after he’d tried so hard to not be upset about this. “The day they took him. It—it was my birthday.”

It had slipped everyone’s minds during the hectic kidnapping aftermath. Jeno’s twenty-second birthday had passed quietly, buried underneath a mountain of stress and paperwork and newfound anxieties, newfound nightmares. In fact, every waking day seemed like one long bad dream that he couldn’t escape from.

And today was only day three. 

###

Jaemin felt guilty.

He hated the feeling of guilt, but he was especially prone to it, what with him having such a big conscience. He had felt guilty throughout his childhood when his parents had constantly fought in the background, he had felt guilty when his little sister had had to navigate puberty all by herself without the support of a mother, and he had felt guilty when he lied to Jeno about why he had started strip dancing in the first place. But some of those things weren’t actually under his control, and he wasn’t obligated to feel at fault for them. He did anyway.

Like right now. Here he was, enjoying a peaceful night downtown with a boy he liked, while his best friend was freaking out over his maybe-soulmate Renjun’s disappearance. Yesterday Jaemin had been treated to one of Jeno’s meltdowns as the lieutenant tearfully blubbered that he and Renjun had finally confessed to their feelings for each other and breached some semblance of together-ness only for all of it to be ripped right out from underneath them.

 _Jeno’s relationship crumbles while mine is just beginning,_ Jaemin thought and another surge of guilt ran through him. He snuck a glance over at Kevin Moon, who was humming happily to himself. Ten’s club had been closed tonight for reasons unknown, so Kevin and Jaemin had decided to take advantage of the free time.

They turned the corner and wandered onto the faux pier, a massive sandalwood creation supported by large white beams that disappeared into the splashing waves below. The sea at night was beautiful if Jaemin focused only on the holograms that made his surroundings look like a real beach, but he knew the truth. There wasn’t an ocean here. Behind those pretty holograms were mountains and mountains of plastic rubbish, discarded after the great Plastic Pollution Influx. There was always some kind of disaster hidden behind pretty things; Renjun and Jeno were just about the prettiest people Jaemin knew, but the two of them were disastrous through and through, _especially_ when it came to each other.

Kevin leaned against the side of the pier, resting his elbows on the rail. The wind tousled his dark hair. “So, Jaemin,” he said warmly. “Got any hobbies?”

“Oh, nothing much. Dancing, sleeping, racing,” Jaemin said. “Shopping. Retail therapy.”

“Racing!” Kevin said, eyebrows raised. “I didn’t know you raced. You mean like, cars and stuff, right?”

“I don’t do it officially. It’s just for fun. I just do it with my friend.” Jaemin and Yangyang had become fast buddies, bonding through their shared experience of driving fast cars, even though Yangyang was Chenle’s age and therefore not qualified for a real race car license. Jaemin let it slide, partially because he himself didn’t own a true license either. “I can take you for a ride one day, if you like? I own a really sexy car.”

Kevin laughed. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that sometime.”

“What about you? Got any hobbies?”

“Nah, not really. I’m just an average guy.”

“That’s a new one,” Jaemin mumbled. The other cocked his head at him to elaborate. “I dunno, but like, just about all my friends are unique in some crazy way or another? It’s a little hard to explain, but you know what I mean—like, my best friends are all really talented at what they do, and I feel funny for being like the odd one out.”

Kevin nudged him. “Hey, I think you’re a great dancer. Probably even better than Solar! But don’t tell her I said that.”

“Haha, thanks.” Jaemin elbowed him back lightly. “So. You’ve been watching me dance?”

Kevin blushed all the way up to his ears. “Um. Well. It’s—it’s kind of hard not to watch. Not that I watch! But it’s not that I don’t _not_ watch. I just—you know how it is, I’m gay, you’re gay, and you’re hot, and I’m—well— _gay_.” He hung his head. “Ugh, this is what my friends meant when they said I’m not smooth,” he muttered.

For someone who saw Jaemin professionally strip on a nightly basis, Kevin was refreshingly shy. “Ooh, tell me more about your friends.”

“You mean the boys at the bar?” Kevin said. “Yeah, we’re tight, so they’re pretty invested in my love life. The night I asked you out . . . well, it might have seemed like they were being nosy, but they’re not nosy. For real. They were just being all excited and obnoxious because I was finally making a move on you after so long of being a wallflower.”

Jaemin grinned. “Does that mean you’ve liked me for a long time?”

Kevin just blushed harder and gave him a crooked smile back.

Simple, sweet things like this were what made Jaemin feel less burdened. He was allowed to be happy, no matter the circumstances of his friends, right? Although Jeno was in shambles and Jaemin was trying his best to help out, he couldn’t fully fix the problem, and that was just that.

A shadow caught his eye.

He and Kevin turned to see a crowd of businesswomen in pencil skirts as they walked by the pier, likely on their way back home from a business dinner. Kevin raised his hand to give them a friendly wave.

One of the businesswomen turned toward them and Jaemin nearly had a heart attack. Even from this distance, he could see that her jaw was hanging wide open, her eyeballs looking almost moldy with their strange sheen. She offered a half-hearted wave, then turned away, walking onward.

Kevin whistled lowly. “Must’ve been a long night. She looks dead on her feet.”

Jaemin’s blood chilled at the unintentional choice of words. “Yeah,” he mumbled, craning his head to see if the rest of the woman’s crowd looked the same as her. 

They did. All of them did.

He had the strange urge to follow where they were going, but he knew that was a horrible idea. He wasn’t cool like Donghyuck or Jisung; he wasn’t equipped to defend himself in any capacity.

Also, he was kind of on a date.

On impulse, Jaemin turned to Kevin and reached up to put his hand on his cheek. Kevin blinked at the sudden motion but didn’t move away.

His skin was normal in both temperature and color. Relief flooded Jaemin.

“Jaemin? Uh. Is there something on my face?”

Jaemin pulled away. “Only handsomeness.”

At that, Kevin did that adorable thing where he cringed and smiled at the same time. “Stop that,” he said, beginning to sidle off the pier. “Wanna go grab a bite to eat? Then we can call it a night. I know it’s getting kinda late.”

As Jaemin followed him, he had to take a deep breath to calm his nerves and remind himself that there was nothing wrong. Spending so much time in the world of crime had definitely caused him to be distrustful of his surroundings. But what could he say? He had had to make sure.

A flash of guilt surged through him when he realized that telling Jeno about the mysterious businesswomen would just stress Jeno out even more. But there was nothing to be done about it—things in the contempire were becoming precarious without Renjun at the helm, and it was up to Jeno to figure out what to do with it all.

###

“So . . . ,” Johnny said, looking between the two people standing in front of him. He rubbed his temples and wondered why he’d agreed to meet them here. “You two. You’re telling me that you’re cousins?”

“That’s right,” said Lisa, the sleeve of her navy uniform so crisp that it made an audible crunching noise as she reached up and patted Bambam’s shoulder. “Didn’t you know?”

“A cop and . . . um, a dancer,” Johnny said. “Wow, okay.”

“Relax, man, she knows I’m a stripper,” Bambam said. “You can call me as I am. She’s not about to expose you and Ten for your secret underground club business.”

Johnny raised an eyebrow. “I see you’re _very_ good at keeping your mouth shut.”

Lisa snorted. “Seo, the LAPD has known about your club for a while by now. I’m here because I wanted to ask Bambam if he’d noticed any strange business going on in there lately—if you know what I mean.”

“So why am _I_ here?” Johnny pressed. He could be snuggling with Ten on his bed instead of sitting on a cold park bench with the wind in his face and a piece of gravel in his shoe. “Why did you call me to this place?”

Bambam took off his glasses, which were quite ridiculous, considering that the frames were shaped like daisies and had no lenses to begin with. They’d been trendy about eight months ago, but it seemed that Bambam wasn’t ready to give up the trend. “Sorry, man, I didn’t mean to inconvenience you or anything. But I thought you’d be the best person to answer Lisa’s questions, you know? You’re the one who keeps tabs on everything that goes on in the club.”

“Yes, but you could’ve just given me a phone call for this,” Johnny said.

“I couldn’t risk anyone overhearing us,” Lisa said. “Now listen closely, and don’t tell anyone anything I tell you. Bambam, I think this is where you have to leave. Thanks for getting me connected with Johnny.”

With a smile and a nod, Bambam left the park. When she was certain he was gone, Lisa leaned in closer to Johnny and started speaking in a hushed voice. “Okay, Seo. I’m going to ask you a serious question and I expect a serious answer.”

“Am I in trouble or something?”

“No, you’re not. I already told you I’m not interested in shutting down your business. I’m here to talk about how your club is the midnight destination for night owls across the contempire—which makes it likely that you’ve encountered some strange things on the job.”

“Well, sure I have,” Johnny said, wondering if she’d come here to hear all the nasty anecdotes he’d compiled over years of working in such a profession.

She sighed. “I’ll cut straight to the point. Do you know what a deadman is, Seo?”

 _Deadman._ That word chilled Johnny’s spine. “Um. Well, my boyfriend Ten does. He explained the whole Operation Phoenix thing to me. Why? Do you think a deadman is attending my strip club?” 

He chuckled a little at the thought of that, but stopped when he saw the sobriety in Lisa’s eyes. “Yes,” she said seriously. “I think so. I’ve been tipped off by a nice young man named Na Jaemin whom my cousin has spoken highly about, and Jaemin has let me know that one night while working at your club, he came into contact with a strange woman whose skin seemed permanently blue. Has he mentioned this to you?”

“No, but I know what you’re talking about. One of the bartenders brought it to my attention,” Johnny said. That Kevin Moon had a good habit of looking out for his friends. “But you can’t actually believe that that woman in my club was a deadman. My witness said she looked pretty normal, or just as if she were wearing an abundance of blue makeup.”

“ _One_ person wearing a bunch of blue makeup is not something I would normally be worried about,” Lisa said, “but the thing is, it’s not just one person. It’s dozens and maybe even hundreds. Us at the LAPD have been getting more and more reports of civilians acting strange lately, migrating in flocks in the dead of the night with envelopes from the government in their hands, only to return home at odd hours with a strange bluish tint to their skin that disappears in a matter of hours. I tried to ask the mayor and then the state governor if we should be alarmed about this, but the statement we received was very cryptic and basically just said we should let the night wanderers go where they want because it’s a free country and they have the right to travel. I can’t help but be suspicious, though. None of the other authorities who live in different contempires that I’ve contacted have experienced these strange night wanderers. It’s just here in LA.”

Johnny felt the wind rustle through his sleeves and shivered slightly. He felt as if he were in the beginning of a horror movie. “Have any of the night wanderers proven to be dangerous?” he asked. “If not, then maybe it’s just a harmless cult. There’s plenty of those in the contempire.”

“A cult this size, and forming so abruptly?” Lisa shook her head, her ruler-straight bangs gently swishing back and forth. “Not likely. And I’m not going to take any chances, especially when the past deadmen we’ve encountered have been violent. Jisoo was in recovery for weeks on end because a deadman tore up her arm. She’ll never have full use of that arm again.” She let out a long breath. “I care about Bambam and he works at that club and I don’t want him to get hurt—but as much as I’d like to ask for a citywide curfew, I can’t do that without a clear nod from the government that this is a public emergency. And that’s not going to happen anytime soon, considering that all the night wanderers are just quietly going to and fro their own homes without pausing to stop at places. Except for that one deadman, who made an appearance at the club.” Lisa rubbed her face. “This is all just so ambiguous. I’m just trying my best to figure out what’s going on.”

“Do you think they’re behind this?” Johnny asked quietly. “The government, I mean?”

“Who else would it be? We know they’re orchestrating Operation Phoenix and all things deadmen. They might even be raising a secret army of zombies,” Lisa said, shrugging tightly.

Johnny felt the urge to help out. “Maybe I can ask Ten to use his social media platforms to spread the word about this? He can ask people who are experiencing the blue skinned condition to report themselves to an ambulance for inspection. That way we can get to the bottom of this.”

Lisa nodded curtly. “Thank you. I’ll contact Ten myself so he knows I’m in the loop as well.”

After a little while, she got back into her pink-and-black police car and rode away. Johnny watched her go before turning around and heading back home. He wasn’t sure how his night off had ended with him discussing clandestine matters with a police officer in the dead of the night at a park bench, but well, sometimes life turned in unexpected directions. He let out a long sigh. Damn the undead. After this he’d definitely need a good snuggle with Ten to get all the apocalyptic fright out of his system.

###

Rubbing his bleary eyes and trying to make sense of why the whole world felt fuzzy and pale, Jeno wandered down to the infirmary on day five. It felt like he hadn’t been to the infirmary in ages. All sorts of bad memories were tied to this place—with a chill, he realized it was the place where Taeyong had confronted Renjun so long ago with the demand to kill Mark. 

“Hey Kunhang,” Jeno mumbled, resting against the doorframe. He shut his eyes. “Got any painkillers? I’ve got a headache.”

When no one answered, he forced his eyes open. The sight that greeted him was an entirely unexpected one: in the middle of the room was a dark green couch with several bulky-looking pillows and a holo-TV hovering in front of it. Jeno recognized the film onscreen as some sort of detective flick that was popular lately. The main actor, Lee Jieun, was Kunhang’s favorite actress.

“Uh . . .” Jeno began uncertainly.

Just then, a pillow on the couch twitched. Jeno wondered if he was seeing things, but no—it wasn’t a pillow, but Kunhang, wrapped up in an enormous potato-colored blanket.

The doctor raised a finger to his lips. “Shh,” he whispered. “It’s movie night.”

Jeno came closer to see that all of the pillows were actually people bundled in mismatched duvets, most of them fast asleep. He spotted Chenle tucked into Jisung’s side, Mark’s forehead resting on Momo’s shoulder, and Bongsik purring atop Kunhang’s lap.

Jeno had spent the whole day contacting all of the other figureheads in the crime world, trying to get in touch with Renjun’s allies, and intermittently having breakdowns of stress and unbearable panic—and the other staff of the mansion were just . . . _relaxing_?

“Painkillers,” was all Jeno said. “Please.”

To his credit, Kunhang got up immediately, placing the cat on the arm of the couch. He started over to the wall of cabinets where he kept various over-the-counter medications. “What are your symptoms?”

“My eyes ache. I have trouble thinking straight.” Jeno fought another wave of dizziness. “Got anything strong?”

“Are you running a fever?”

“No, but I just feel so awful. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

At that, Kunhang closed the cabinet decisively. “Jeno, when your eyes hurt and you feel bad, you need to lie down and close your eyes. That’s a sexy little maneuver that us in the field of medicine call getting some _sleep_.”

“Very funny.” Jeno gripped the doorframe harder to stay upright. “I think I need some caffeine.”

The doctor guided him over to the couch and tried to push him to sit down. “Take a nap. It’s late. I’ll wake you in an hour.”

Jeno stubbornly stayed upright. “No you won’t, you’ll just let me sleep till daybreak. That’s not what I want.”

On the couch armrest, Bongsik meowed. She arched her back at him and Jeno reluctantly petted her for a moment. 

On the other end of the couch, Jisung yawned, sitting up. His hair was sticking out in all different directions, but his eyes were lucid. It was clear he had just been pretending to be asleep so as not to disturb Chenle, who was conked out beside him. “Hey, loot. How was your day?” Jisung asked.

“I don’t even know how you want me to answer that question,” Jeno said, sounding stiff even to his own ears.

Jisung swallowed. “Sorry. Anyway. Earlier today, I hacked into the prison database for the main prison facility in the contempire. But Renjun’s name didn’t show up—I don’t think Taeyong has turned him in quite yet.”

“I hacked into that ages ago,” Jeno said, a little more harshly than he had intended to. He had feared that Renjun might face brutality from other inmates, what with him being such a petite person, and he had been glad to find out that Renjun hadn’t been incarcerated yet—but that also meant that Renjun could be just about anywhere, and Jeno had no idea where to look. “I already knew that.”

“Oh.” Jisung blinked. “Sorry again, then.”

Jeno petted Bongsik’s rump a little too hard and she batted at him in protest. Jisung turned his attention back to the TV.

“Jeno. Earth to Jeno. Are you going to sleep or not?” Kunhang broke in.

Jeno’s gaze shifted down at his two brothers, who were cozily asleep on the couch, along with Momo and Jisung, both of whom were enthralled by the movie. A tic twitched in Jeno’s eye.

He whirled to Kunhang. “What is _wrong_ with you all?”

The doctor looked taken aback. “What do you mean?”

“The boss has been missing for almost a week, and yet you guys here cuddling?” Jeno said. “Shouldn’t you be worried? Shouldn’t you be helping me search for him? Why are all of you being such—such lumps on logs?”

“I already told you that I tried to help,” Jisung pointed out.

“Emphasis on _tried_ ,” Jeno snapped.

“Jeno,” Kunhang said, with a more patronizing voice than Jeno had ever heard come from him. However, later, once he was able to look back on the moment with a clear mind not fuddled with exhaustion and paranoia, he would see that the doctor was just trying to be kind. “Some people release their stress in different ways. You do it by working even more, while others need some time to relax and recharge.”

The tic spasmed harder. Jeno wanted to relax _too_. But there was no time. He couldn’t afford to rest.

Momo brushed her coke-white braid off her shoulder, eyeing Jeno with something akin to nervousness. “We should call Jaemin to help out with this,” she murmured, and both Kunhang and Jisung nodded in agreement.

Jeno bristled. “What does that mean?”

Chenle stirred at Jeno’s loud tone. Kunhang sighed and scooped the teenager up, untangling his limbs even as he semi-consciously tried to cling to Jisung. “Look,” Kunhang said, shifting the younger onto his back in a comfortable piggyback position, “the kids need to sleep. I’ll get this one to his room. Jeno, you should get some rest too, alright?”

He left the infirmary, taking Chenle with him.

Jeno’s head was starting to pound more than ever. “You heard him,” he muttered to Jisung. “Go to bed.”

Jisung sat up, shifting the blankets off of him and onto Mark, who grunted but otherwise stayed asleep. “Well,” Jisung said. “There’s actually something I needed to discuss with you. It’s . . . uh, it’s about the night that Renjun went missing.”

 _Finally_. Jeno had been waiting for the teenager to speak up about this, hadn’t wanted to pry and look like he was pointing fingers—he was glad for Jisung bringing it up first, because at least it saved some of Jeno’s pride. (No one needed to know that Jeno had planned on confronting him soon anyway.)

“How did Yeji even get in?” Jeno said, cutting straight to the chase. “How did she get past the front door?”

“Uh,” Jisung said. “It . . . might’ve been my fault.”

“I thought so. You’re the doorkeeper, after all. How can I trust you after you let me down like that? If Yeji got in so easily the first time, she can just as quickly stop by and nab Mark.”

“What? Why would she want Mark?”

“I’ve told you this before, it’s because Taeyong wants Mark dead.”

“Why?”

Jeno felt a new wave of frustration rise in his throat. “Look, I don’t know! I’m not Taeyong. But I need you to explain to me exactly what happened that made you let down your guard the day Renjun got taken.”

Jisung cleared his throat. Scratched his neck. Jeno crossed his arms. Momo, the only other person awake in the room, looked distinctly uncomfortable at being caught in the crossfire of this brewing tension.

“Okay,” Jisung said. “So, remember how I made a decision not to be a flake in my relationship with Chenle? Well. The thing is, the day that Renjun got kidnapped, I was supposed to be the one guarding the door and keeping an eye on all of the surveillance cameras. But I wanted to spend time with Chenle to make things up to him about our missed date—”

“ _No_ ,” Jeno breathed in disbelief.

“And so I asked Momo to take my place as doorkeeper instead,” Jisung finished. “Just for the night. But to be fair, the ladies stand in for me a lot, and usually they work in pairs, just to have backup and everything. But because the majority of the sisters have been sick lately . . . well. Momo didn’t really . . . have anyone as backup.”

“So when she was attacked, she was all alone?” Jeno demanded. “Why didn’t Momo call _you_ for backup?”

“I did,” Momo jumped in weakly. “But he didn’t pick up his phone.”

At that, Jeno’s eyes went wide as saucers.

Jisung shrank, looking extremely red. “I’m sorry! I had my phone on silent! I didn’t want to interrupt my time with my boyfriend. When you told me not to be a flake, I really took it seriously, you know? I—”

Jeno cut him off. “Your relationship with Chenle is important, but isn’t it a _little less important_ than, I don’t know, protecting the mansion from violent intruders? Didn’t you think of that?”

“I’m sorry,” Jisung stammered.

Jeno shoved his face closer to the teenager’s. “ _But?_ ”

“No buts.”

Jeno stayed there for a moment, practically vibrating, until all of the heat drained out of him and his muscles loosened and he leaned back, feeling spent. Jisung scooted away quickly.

Blaming Jisung or Momo wouldn’t do anything. If anyone was going to point fingers, it should be Renjun himself, because wasn’t it all Jeno’s fault that this had happened? Jeno saw the kind of effect that he had on Renjun. Around Jeno, Renjun was softer, easier. On that rooftop, Jeno had kissed him positively silly—anyone would have been disarmed by that, would have let down their guard enough to be overpowered by a kidnapper.

“Sorry,” Jeno said wearily, to no one in particular. “How are your sisters doing, Momo?” 

“My sisters?” Momo asked, not looking as pleased at the change of subject as Jeno had thought she would’ve been. “They’re . . . well, they’re . . .”

“Don’t coat it. Just say it, please. Are they getting any better? Do they need serious medical attention? How much longer until they’re back on their feet?”

She fidgeted with the blanket for a second, before she took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and looked up. “I don’t know. There’s something really, really wrong, and it’s a type of illness none of us have ever seen before. It seems to be only affecting the sisters with the Korean upbringing.”

Great. More mysteries to unravel. But Jeno had asked for it, hadn’t he? “I thought you were all family by blood, though.”

“We’re not. We just like to call each other sisters because we’re close.”

Massaging his temples, Jeno sat down on the couch, startling Bongsik who jumped out of the way just in time. “Alright, I didn’t know that. So this mysterious virus attacks only the Korean ones, you said?”

“Well,” Momo hedged. “It’s complicated—”

“Please explain concisely.”

“There’s nine of us. Five of us are Korean, three of us are Japanese, and one of us is Taiwanese.” Momo checked to see if Jeno was still following. “So at first, five of the girls showed symptoms. They were the Korean ones. Coughing, sneezing, skin discoloration, incessantly bloody noses, etcetera. Our youngest sister Tzuyu, the Taiwanese one, is terrified of gore, so she never went near the sick girls. The Japanese squad was in charge of all the caretaking. The virus isn’t contagious—at least, it hasn’t affected me or the other two Japanese girls,” Momo said. “Those five sisters who got sick were the Korean ones, so we thought it was some strange breed of virus pertaining to race? If that sort of thing even exists, I mean. But then Tzuyu got sick.”

Jisung squinted. “Tzuyu getting sick doesn’t make sense at all.”

“He’s right,” Jeno said. “What correlation does Tzuyu have with the other five?”

“Here’s the _thing_ ,” Momo said, lowering her voice. “Tzuyu grew up in the same household as the Korean sisters. They spent their childhoods together. Whereas me and the Japanese sisters— _we_ grew up in Japan, separate from the others.”

Jeno was quiet, trying to sort out her words. It was a lot to take in.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Jisung said, getting up. “So you’re saying that you think the reason why Tzuyu and the Korean sisters are all sick is because they shared the same _childhood_? Sorry, but I don’t think that’s how it works. You don’t just contract a disease when you’re little and then show symptoms years later. At least, that’s not like any disease I’ve ever heard about.”

Momo shrugged helplessly. “Look, I’m no scientist. All I can tell you are the observations and information I have on my sisters.”

Jisung sat back down on the couch. Jeno leaned his head against the top of the sofa and tried to think all of this through. At surface level, none of it seemed relevant, but something was nagging at him. There was something amiss here. 

No one said anything for a long while. The movie on the screen rambled on, lending a white noise to the otherwise stifling silence of the infirmary, and in time Jeno found his eyes slipping shut.

Sleep had almost claimed him before his eyes shot open and he sat up ramrod straight.

“Holy shit. Guys. Guys, guys, guys.”

Jisung startled out of his own slumber. “What?”

“What is it?” Momo asked.

“The thing your sisters are going through is not like any disease we’ve ever heard about,” Jeno echoed. “Maybe . . . maybe because we just haven’t heard about it.”

“Uh,” Jisung said. “Well yes, but I think you’re missing the point—”

“Because the condition is a secret,” Jeno said, feeling alight. Adrenaline had washed all the fatigue out of his system. “A federal secret.”

Momo raised her eyebrows. “Now it’s your turn to explain.”

“Your sisters, are they experiencing bluish skin? They’ve got a perfectly reasonable air supply, but their faces and necks and arms and fingers are all slightly discolored?”

“That’s right.”

“Have they been receiving strange envelopes in the mail? Envelopes that come packaged with money that looks counterfeit but has weird pictures on it?”

“Hold on.” She held up her hands. “Okay, yes, we’ve been getting odd envelopes, but we shred them right away because we don’t trust anything that comes from the federals. We mostly just thought it was junk mail. But how did you even know that? Have you been receiving them too?”

“One last question,” Jeno said. “I need to know if—”

All of the sudden, Momo’s pocket lit up. She cursed and scrambled to dig her phone out of her pants.

“It’s my sister Mina,” she said, sharing a quick look with both Jisung and Jeno before she answered the call with rapid-fire Japanese.

After a couple sentences, she started talking louder, her voice rising with a distinctive hysterical edge. She began gesturing wildly with her hands, syllables spilling out of her lips, tears forming in her eyes, until finally she fell completely silent and ended the call.

“What’s wrong?” Jeno asked quietly.

“It’s twisted,” Momo choked out. She threw her phone down then sank down onto the couch beside it, her head in her hands. “This whole situation is twisted. It’s driving us apart.”

“What do you mean?” Jisung pressed. “Will you tell us what she said?”

“We have our own house, you know?” Momo managed. “Sometimes we sleep here in the mansion, but other times we go home and rest there. The sick girls have been staying at the house and we’ve been taking care of them there—but Mina just caught the girls sneaking back inside through the kitchen window. She asked them where they’d been and why they’d left their beds.”

“And what did they say?” Jeno said.

Momo shook her head. “It was like they were all sleepwalking! They ignored her and went back to their rooms, where they fell back asleep as if nothing happened. Mina checked the soles of their shoes and it’s obvious they’ve been sneaking out often, maybe even every night. She has no idea how or why they’ve been doing it.”

“I’ve read too many zombie apocalypse books to not feel afraid about this,” Jisung said, wrapping his arms around himself. 

_That_ was the final piece of the puzzle. Jeno pushed out of his seat, beginning to pace. He felt hot, pulsing, like he was on the brink of something very, very dreadful. 

“I think I know what’s going on,” he said. “I swear I’m not just pulling stuff out of my ass. Taking on Renjun’s job as a mafia boss has forced me to be really aware about the things that are going on in our community lately. I’ve been trading correspondence with the police station, I’ve been paying attention to the news, and I’ve been on the routine lookout for noticeable patterns and discrepancies. And listen to this. Ten, one of the celebrities I follow, announced on his livestream the other day that he’s been seeing blue-skinned people around lately and he suggests that those people check themselves into a hospital to get their condition examined. Jaemin, my best friend, mentioned to me last night a strange blue-skinned woman who showed up at his strip club and gave him a piece of counterfeit money with a deadman’s face on it. She said she had gotten it from a top secret government convention in which she had met _other people like her_. Other blue-skinned people.”

A shriek from the movie on the screen pierced the air. Jisung jumped out of his seat. He was definitely sweating now, beads of it sliding down his neck.

“This is scaring me,” he said. “What the shit is happening? What are you saying, Jeno?”

“I’m saying,” Jeno said, “that it’s likely Operation Phoenix has been going on for a much longer time than any of us have realized. And the deadmen may very well be camouflaged among us.”

###

Long after Jisung, Jeno, and Momo had left the infirmary to go to sleep in their respective rooms, Mark stayed on the couch. His eyes were closed, but he was very much awake, and had overheard everything the others had discussed.

Subconsciously he reached up to touch the mod on the back of his neck. None of this made any sense to Mark. Why was he Taeyong’s target? Why did he deserve to die? What had he done wrong? He knew he was the center of basically everything that had occurred to Jeno and Renjun, whether it be their current separation or their long-ago first meeting, but Mark didn’t know _why_.

He opened his eyes and dialed Donghyuck. 

The assassin picked up on the second ring. “Hey, Markle Sparkle.”

Normally, Mark would get flustered at the nicknames he liked to call him, but today he found he didn’t mind. “Hey. Uh. You on a job?”

“No, just finished one. I’ve got another scheduled in an hour. Why? Is everything alright?”

“Why . . . why did Joo Geum kill me?”

Donghyuck coughed in surprise. “What? Mark, because she was evil.”

“You kill people and you’re not evil.”

“That’s different. I do this for money. I don’t have a psychological urge to commit violence, the way that serial killers do. I thought you understood this? You can’t lump me in with them. I’m not them. You get that, don’t you? I’m not—”

“Yes, yes,” Mark said, jumping to stave off the growing panic in the other’s voice. “I know that, Hyuck. Trust me.”

“Okay.” Donghyuck swallowed audibly. 

“I’m just confused, that’s all,” Mark went on. “I just . . .”

All of a sudden he was reminded of a scene a lot like this one, several months ago, when he’d sat on the lawn in front of Renjun’s fragrant wine-colored rose gardens and chatted with Dejun while the older smoked a holo-cig. _Too many people believe there’s someone behind all of the bad things_ , Dejun had told him. _If you try to trace the trail of whose fault it was, you’ll just end up wasting time._

“Never mind,” Mark finally said. “Sorry for bothering you, Hyuck.”

“Oh don’t worry, I customized my ringtone to my favorite song for your contact, so it’s all good. I never feel bothered when it’s you who calls.”

Mark inhaled, took a second of hesitation, and then decided it was time to try something new. “Are you sure it’s just because of the song?” he asked gently.

“Of course. I love that song. It’s my number one karaoke track.” Donghyuck hummed in demonstration of the tune, but after a moment his voice died off. “Hold on. _Wait_ ,” he said, sounding excited. “Holy cow, Mark, did you just—what did you just—”

“See you in the morning,” Mark laughed. 

“No! Hold on! Don’t you dare hang up. You totally just flirted with me, didn’t you? You just—”

“Bye, Hyuck,” Mark all but sang, before ending the call and leaning back into the couch.

He imagined the younger staring down at his phone, pink-faced and spluttering. It was a fair enough exchange, after all the times Donghyuck had made Mark’s heart flutter in his chest. Whenever that happened, it seemed to confuse Mark’s mod into thinking he was in danger. He would get sweaty, and tingly, and nervous—which was a _natural_ fight-or-flight response, Mark had told himself for the longest time. A natural side effect of a mod.

But what if it wasn’t? What if it was just . . . Donghyuck?

A shy smile grew over his face. He knew the answer already.

He stayed there in the infirmary, watching the TV for a little while longer. The gingham-clad protagonist was trying to pin down the culprit of the hate crime. However, at the end of the movie it was revealed that there was no culprit to begin with, and there had been no hate crime, just a horrible misfortune.

Maybe there was a villain in the story of Mark’s life, maybe there wasn’t. Maybe he just had to accept his lot in life and move on. He was willing to put up with serial killers and mafia boss kidnappers if it meant a world with Donghyuck in it.

###

Jungwoo had just gotten off his plane when his holo-phone buzzed with a call from Huang’s lieutenant.

Grumbling, he picked it up. He’d been hoping to get back to his hotel and sleep off the jet lag for a little while before he’d have to partake in any business. At least Yukhei, his travel partner, was nice enough to buy Jungwoo a bagel and some cream cheese in hopes of easing his ire.

“What is it, Lee?” Jungwoo said. “I just got off my flight.”

Jeno’s voice on the other side of the line sounded feverish. “Hey, Kim. I’ve got some developments on what happened to Renjun. I think you can use this as evidence for the case.”

Jungwoo bit into his bagel and instantly regretted not putting enough cream cheese on it. He forced himself to keep chewing anyway. “I don’t think this situation calls for a case,” he said. “At least, not in the courtroom. If what you told me is true and Huang hasn’t been admitted to an official prison facility yet, then it’s just Lee Taeyong we’ll need to fight against.” 

“Yeah, okay, that makes sense. But here’s what I have to tell you.”

“Can’t it wait?” Jungwoo tore his bagel in half and dipped one side of it into the cream cheese container. “I’m literally still at the airport.”

“Sorry, it can’t wait. I’m probably ten minutes away from passing out and I need to tell you about these things before I’m out cold. Listen carefully. Remember what I say. Got that?”

“Alright, I’ll listen.”

Jeno took a deep breath and began his story.

It was a long explanation. As it went on, Jungwoo found his appetite draining away little by little. He eventually set down his now-cold bagel, getting up to pace around the perimeter of the airport food court. By the time Jeno was over and Jungwoo had hung up and returned back to the table, Yukhei was looking severely troubled.

“Everything okay, Woo?” he asked. “What did he tell you?”

“The situation is worse than I thought,” Jungwoo said. His head was swirling, full of ideas, full of dread, but most of all full of sweet, sweet _anticipation_. This was going to be one hell of a job. “Ever wanted to save the world, Xuxi?”

“Not especially,” Yukhei said. “But well, I’ll do it if there’s money involved. Why? How are we going to save the world?”

Jungwoo felt his lips lift up in a small smirk.

“Just you wait.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the rating, I changed it to M and added the Graphic Violence warning. This chapter is a game-changer.
> 
> cw/tw: there's a scene of explicitly described violence in this chapter. It starts at "instead of answering, they seized him" and ends at "watched through that gap in the picket fence." This is a crucial scene so if u decide to skip past it, pls go to the end notes at that point for a brief summary

Renjun was having a bad day.

A bad week, to be exact. He wasn’t wearing anything but a pair of pants, his eyes and nose kept watering because of the nxi weaponized perfume his captor had assaulted him with, and he was sitting in the same cramped box without real space to stretch his limbs or walk around. He could barely even think past the flurry of acidic pain eating away at his nostrils. Was he even alive at this point? Was this what it felt to be a deadman? Every hour or so he felt a new surge of pity for the deadmen that his lieutenant had killed with a color gun. That must have been too painful for words.

His eyes were so sensitive that they burned whenever he looked upward at the sky. That is—the sky, as in the small barred window on the ceiling of his cell. Right now, if he squinted, he could ignore the pain and study the ugly green-gray smog that dotted the sky with the characteristic sallow clouds of color pollution. His heart felt grayer, sallower. His fingernails ached. He smelled awful. And his _eyes_ hurt.

He closed them and reminded himself to breathe a little. Right now he was curled up in the square of light from the window, trying to soak up all the warmth that he could. Dammit, he was _cold_. He had no socks or shoes or even a fucking shirt, because the genius Hwang Yeji hadn’t thought of the courtesy to let him collect his clothes and hygenic belongings before she’d spirited him away. For god’s sake.

So far, he had spent five days and five nights in this cell. After the first night, he’d made the mistake of sleeping atop the rough straw mat provided to him, and he’d suffered ugly red bites all over his body from the bed bugs. In a fit of frustration, he had picked the mat apart with his nails to fashion some sort of noose he could strangle Lee Taeyong with. But then his fingers had grown sore and swollen from so much abrasion, and he had had to give up the project.

 _I’m going insane_ . He rubbed his arms, hoping the physical action might warm his body up a little. _There’s nothing I can do._ He knew so little of where he even was. What was this location? It certainly wasn’t Taeyong’s company edifice, because that was located in the west side of the contempire where traffic was abundant, and Renjun hadn’t heard any noises from passing cars or trains. He could have been in the middle of nowhere, or in another country entirely.

There was a sudden bang of the door opening. 

If he craned his head back far enough, he could make out a figure standing in the doorway, a good distance away from where the bars of Renjun’s cell began. The cell was designed so that Renjun was confined to the back half of the room, while the rest of the room between the door and the bars was empty space. It really was such a stupid layout for a cell. If Renjun ever added a dungeon wing to his mansion, he’d be sure to design top-notch architecture.

Renjun didn’t bother to stand up and greet the enterer. “Hmm,” he said, arms crossed behind his head, “you’re early.”

“Hi again,” said his cell keeper, a girl named Yuna. “You finally feel like eating something?”

“No, not this time.”

“Then when, Huang?” She balanced the tray of food against her hip with an exasperated look. “Yong says to make sure you don’t starve. You’re not planning to do that, are you?”

Actually, Renjun’s plan was to slim down enough that he could slip out through these bars. He wasn’t sure how he was going to slim his skull down, but he’d find a way. “You go ahead and try that gruel, Shin—it’s basically water.”

“How do you know my name?”

“I hear you gossiping with your girlfriend every day outside my cell room.”

Yuna shook her head, chestnut-colored bangs swishing. “Yeji’s not my girlfriend. And it’s not gossip.”

“Oh. Well then. Then would you mind giving her a slap across the face for me?” Renjun swiped at his nose. He was discouraged by the way his nostrils, inflamed as they were, perked up at the scent of the hot bowl of gruel that Yuna was carrying. “If you and she have no emotional attachments to each other, I mean.”

“She’s my friend. I’m not going to hit her.” Yuna slid the bowl through the small gap in between the floor and the bottom row of the bars. “Look, I know you’re in a bad place right now, but try to look on the bright side of things, alright? You’ve at least got a functioning toilet.” She paused. “Not that you use it, though. You barely eat, so you barely produce solid waste, which means you’re barely even alive. Do I need to call in the doctor? Yong _said_ to make sure you don’t die—”

“Fuck what Yong said,” Renjun said mildly.

Silence.

He turned onto his side to look at her. Yuna’s black irises stared back, travelling down his body and then back up in obvious distaste. Her brow furrowed when her gaze caught on the bared side of his abdomen, where a jagged scar arced down his skin.

After she looked back up, the momentary concern was gone. “I knew it was a mistake to talk to you,” she muttered. “I try to be nice and then I get cursed at? Figures.”

“I cursed at your boss, not you. Where the hell is he? Don’t you think it’s about time he dropped by to say hello?” Renjun sneezed, then wiped his nose with his forearm and barely had the heart to be disgusted at the wet streak it left. At least there wasn’t any blood. “What was in that nxi perfume that Hwang Yeji sprayed on me?” he said, trying to keep his voice casual so as not to tip Yuna off. “Jung Yoonoh is involved in this, isn’t he?”

“Don’t even speak my boyfriend’s name,” said a new, gravelly voice, which caused Renjun to sit up automatically. He narrowed his eyes at the newcomer in the room: an all-too-familiar man with body proportions so perfect he looked like a cartoon. He wore a pair of shiny boots with a velvet green shirt that was tucked into a pair of neat jeans.

Taeyong’s calculating eyes roved over Renjun, who fought to keep himself from shrinking. He knew what he looked like. What state his body was in. His cheeks were gaunt, his ribs visible from underneath grimy skin. His too-long hair lay flat against his head. Stubble shadowed the line of his jaw.

Taeyong turned away to murmur quite audibly to Yuna, “Why is he half-naked?”

“Oh, that’s just what he looked like when Yeji brought him here.”

“Has he been getting enough to eat?”

She grimaced in response. Taeyong sighed, as if he knew this would happen.

“Well, congrats, Huang,” he said. “You’re so stubborn you’re actually going to wind up killing yourself before I get to you. Is that what you’re trying to do? To find dignity in self-harm?”

“There’s no such thing as that,” Renjun said, one eyebrow cocked. “I’m on a diet, Lee. Ever heard of one?”

“If he won’t eat, do you think we should give him nutrients through an IV?” Yuna said.

Taeyong scoffed. “You really believe he’s worth that much?” 

“I get that he’s your rival, but he’s still a human. You need to treat him like one.”

“It’s not my fault he doesn’t like the food we serve him! What is this, a restaurant? Trust me, he’ll eat eventually.”

 _No, I won’t_ , Renjun thought, smiling placidly.

“Yong, there’s something wrong with his sinuses,” pressed Yuna. “I’ve noticed he keeps sniffling and rubbing at his eyes and nose. He needs medical care.”

“That’s right,” Renjun broke in. “And I appreciate the concern.”

“ _Yuna_ ,” said Taeyong, sounding exasperated. “There’s nothing wrong with his sinuses. He’s just been crying. That’s what people do when they get kidnapped. They cry!”

Renjun climbed to his feet, rolling his neck to rid himself of the lingering stiffness. For once he was grateful for his short stature, because it meant that he could stand fully upright in this cell. A taller person would have had to hunch. Not good for posture.

“What the shit do you want from me, Lee?” Renjun demanded. “Why am I here?”

“You know why,” Taeyong said. “Yuna, now is when you leave.”

“Boss,” she said. A protest.

“That’s an order.”

She glared at him, but exited the room. The holo-keys to Renjun’s cell jangled from the belt loop on her hip and he spared a moment to gaze after them in a moment of helplessness—although he knew that even if he managed to get his hands on those keys, they would be useless without the matching holo-lock, which he had no idea how to activate. As far as he could tell, his cell had no doors.

“When are you going to let me go?” Renjun asked.

Taeyong clasped his hands behind his back and began to walk the length of the room. “I’m still waiting on that video evidence.”

“Of _Mark_?” Renjun shook his head. “If you’re so anxious to get rid of Mark, why didn’t you order Yeji to just kill him after she’d made it into my mansion in the first place?”

“Oh, she tried,” Taeyong assured him. “But the mod made it difficult. We don’t know how to work around it. We figured the only person who knows how to get rid of Mark Lee is you.”

“But how am I supposed to get rid of him if I’m here locked away in your hellhole?”

“Your lieutenant is taking care of your enterprise for you. He’s the one I’m expecting to send in the proof of that deadman’s destruction.”

That made Renjun laugh, a startling noise that echoed off the walls of the chamber. “What? All this time, you’ve been expecting Jeno to—oh, God. I can’t even believe this. Lee, I never even told Jeno about your threat to get me in stripes. He knows nothing. He has no clue you’re expecting him to kill Mark.”

Taeyong stopped pacing. “You mean you didn’t communicate with him previously?”

“No! I didn’t! This is ridiculous,” Renjun said. “What about you? Did you reach out to him asking for the video evidence?”

“. . . Well, I had just assumed he understood the situation.” Taeyong sent him a critical eye. “Why is there this massive communication gap between you and your lieutenant? That’s odd. Well, I’ll give you a chance to fix it. You get one phone call, when you can call your precious Lee Jeno and tell him everything that needs to get done.”

“And what makes you think Jeno’s going to blow up his own brother?” Renjun asked.

Taeyong neared the bars of the cell. “He’ll have to choose between you or Mark.”

“You’re an idiot,” Renjun said. “Jeno is going to cut his losses.”

“Do you want your phone call or not?” 

Renjun eyed him through the bars. He knew well enough that Taeyong was capable of dialing Jeno himself, but that he wanted Jeno to hear Renjun’s voice, to listen to the rasp of disuse and weakness that had pervaded his throat over the past few days. It was a clear ploy for success. Renjun could only imagine Jeno on the other side of the line, worried sick, ready to do anything to get him back.

He wouldn’t kill Mark. That was for certain. And Renjun would not ask him to do it, either.

“I want my phone call,” he said to Taeyong. “Bring me a phone.”

###

_“Gee, calm down,” Jeno said as they neared the front door of his house. “It’s not like you’re meeting the president or anything. It’s just my brothers.”_

_Renjun said nothing, just shifted his sweaty grip on the box of sesame cakes his mother had ordered him to bring with him._

_“Mark and Chenle like you,” Jeno added._

_“You can’t speak for them,” Renjun said._

_Jeno scrunched up his nose in his smile. “Well, if it helps . . ._ I _like you.”_

_“That’s not the same.”_

_“Isn’t it?”_

_Renjun stomped past him. Jeno’s laugh pealed through the air as the two of them entered the Lee household. It was a simple, comfortable-looking home, with an older boy lounging on the couch and a pipsqueak of a kid beside him._

_“Mark! Lele! Meet Junnie,” Jeno said. “My Bee Eff.”_

_The older boy, Mark, popped his head up. “Your what now?”_

_“Bee Eff. You know, best friend.”_

_“I’m not sure that means what you think it means,” Mark said._

_Renjun wasn’t paying attention. He had rehearsed for this moment, and he was determined to make a good impression. With a deep breath he folded himself into a 90 degree bow and shoved the box of sesame cakes out in front of him. “Hello my name is Renjun please accept my humble hospital lit tee thank you for your offering.” He paused. “Wait. I mean, please accept my humble offering. And thank you for the hospital lit tee. Oh my God, can I redo this?”_

_“I think you meant to say hospitality,” called the tiny boy._

_“Is_ — _is that how it’s pronounced?” Renjun asked weakly._

_“Don’t rag on the poor kid, Chenle,” Mark said. “Hey there, Renjun. Lighten up a little, will you? None of this bowing business. It’s good that you and I are finally meeting! Jeno talks a lot about you, you know.”_

###

Jeno was at the top of the glass staircase, staring down at the lobby floor beneath him. Square in his vision, about three hundred and thirty-three stories down, rested the mural of the cow-like, large-eyed creature with a round snout and triangular-shaped ears. The mural was made out of interlocking star-shaped tiles. Jeno had shifted the bloodblue carpet over to the side of the lobby so that he could see the Moomin depiction in its entirety.

His elbows were braced against the staircase banister. From one of his fists dangled a golden chain that hung stagnant in the stale air of the mansion.

With a soft sigh, he pushed himself back, retreating from the stairway.

It was almost morning by now. He felt as if his life had just become one endless night, regardless of if the sun was up or down, regardless of if he ate or slept or worked or didn’t. It was all one long nightmare.

The deadmen situation was getting worse. As time went on, Jeno was growing more certain that his hunch about Operation Phoenix was correct, and that there were more deadmen roaming the city disguised as civilians than anyone had ever imagined. No matter how hard Mina, Momo, and Sana tried, they couldn’t keep their deadmen sisters from awakening in the middle of the night and wandering downtown to some clandestine destination. Once, Mina had tried following them—only to be cornered in the street by twenty-three different deadmen who had quietly loomed in a ring around her until she’d raised her trembling hands in surrender. Then they had left one by one, checking over their shoulders to make sure she didn’t follow them again.

Jeno had explained his theories to the Crawlers, Jungwoo and Yukhei, who were currently formulating a way to use this information as a weapon against Renjun’s captor, Taeyong. Jungwoo, specifically, was the head of operations. Jeno had no idea where the lawyer had learned to be so cunning, but he was always one step ahead, planning their next move, putting pieces together that Jeno himself hadn’t even grasped. It was impressive. Jungwoo was soft-spoken and disarmingly gentle, a foil to his boisterous business partner Yukhei.

Jeno rubbed his eyes. He was aimlessly wandering the top floor of the mansion, trying to dispel the flutter of anxiety in his stomach that hadn’t let up in days. “Stop it, Jeno,” he mumbled, “stop _doing_ this. Stop thinking so you can lie down and get some damn sleep.”

It was only a couple moments later that he realized he’d wandered into Renjun’s office, where he stood alone, his dark shadow cutting a line across the boss’s immaculate floor. 

The room was so neat, so perfect, as if it didn’t know its owner had gone missing. As if it was patiently lying in wait for him to return. Shit, Jeno needed him to return. He didn’t know what he would do if . . . if—

“He’s not dead,” he said aloud. “Don’t even think about it. Renjun isn’t—he isn’t—”

His fist shook around the pendant he was clutching.

With a strangled cry, he whirled around and slammed his fist into the wall as hard as he could.

He cursed, dropped the pendant to the floor to inspect his split knuckles. An ache lanced up his elbow, all the way to his shoulder, and with a sob he sank against the wall, cradling his arm.

“Idiot,” he said to no one in particular. 

God, he was dizzy. He was so fatigued that the wall under his shoulder kind of felt like it was moving. Shifting. _What?_ He rubbed his eyes and backed away.

No, the wall was definitely moving. 

Clockwork gears and cogs worked in intimidating silence, folding in on themselves and shrinking outward to form a man-sized hole exposing an adjacent room. Jeno peeped through the rapidly forming doorway, trying to make sense of what was going on, but by the time the wall finally stopped moving he had figured it out.

It was a hidden clockwork room. Just like Ahn Jiyoung’s secret boutique at the mall. Renjun’s voice drifted about in the recesses of Jeno’s mind: _. . . they’re fairly common, at least among people who keep secrets and are rich enough to afford these sorts of facades._

Jeno stepped over the threshold into the room. As soon as he put his other foot in, the doorway sealed shut behind him, and he was left in utter darkness. He desperately groped about to find a light switch.

The lights turned on, and his eyes went wide.

This place was an art gallery.

And all the paintings were about _him_.

Him, as a child. In all of them he couldn’t have been more than twelve, thirteen years old. There he was, sitting on the bleachers of a school gym, elbows resting on his knees and jersey sticking to his chest. There he was again, curled up in a bed with a pillow snug in his arms and a mess of homework papers scattered around on the sheets. There he was, standing in a meadow full of pseudograss, his arms raised toward a hazy autumn sky and his face tilted upward. Some of the paintings were cinematic, like the one that included nothing but a painstakingly detailed close-up of a brilliant sunset reflected in the wide orbs of his eyes, but there were some paintings that depicted small, simple moments drawn in rough, abstract strokes, like the shape of kneeling to tie his shoelaces.

Jeno backed up until his shoulders were pressed against the wall behind him.

His mind spun from the weight of everything sinking into him. The paintings were making him remember.

All of these moments . . . all this time . . .

If Jeno had been anyone else, he would have been creeped out. But all of the paintings in front of him matched the flashbacks he had had, leading up to this moment. This wasn’t creepy at all. Instead, it felt like he was arriving home. 

Not many of the paintings depicted the boy with facial details, but there was one in particular that caught Jeno’s eye. Quickly he sat down to take a closer look—in this one, he was on his knees and peeking out from behind a picket fence, his face pulled in an expression of horror.

Jeno felt the breath get knocked out of him.

At last, the final memory slid in place. 

_Men in green, chasing them. Bootsteps on grass. Two boys, shaking and hidden behind the underbrush, knees stained with dirt. Renjun leaned in to kiss Jeno’s cheek, but the tenderness only lasted a moment before he was pushing Jeno down and standing up and walking out of the underbrush._

_“I thought there were two of you,” said one of the green-clad men gruffly._

_“No,” Renjun said, his voice clear. No one except Jeno could tell he was lying through his teeth. “There’s just me. What do you want?”_

_Instead of answering, they seized him. Held him down on the ground. He struggled at first and kicked their faces trying to get away, but they pinched his nose shut until he was forced to part his lips for air, and then they slipped a handful of pills into his mouth and waited until he’d swallowed. Afterwards, one of the men took out a blade._

_Slowly, carefully, the man cut off Renjun’s shirt, then rested the very tip of the scalpel against the boy’s soft exposed stomach. Teeth clenched, eyes wide, Renjun stayed frozen, too consumed by the fear that one wrong move on his part would end in an unplanned slash across his flesh._

_As the organ harvesters began their work, Renjun started to scream. Tears streaming down his contorted face, he tilted his head ever so slightly over at Jeno. Their gazes made contact. Renjun’s eyes were dark, full of pain, anesthetic, and regret, but most of all they held a silent command_ — _and Jeno understood._

_He held both his silence and Renjun’s gaze until the other slipped into unconsciousness, his screams silenced, his body going entirely limp against the stained grass. The scalpel kept working, kept moving. Jeno swallowed his sick and watched through that gap in the picket fence._

  
  
  


With a shudder, Jeno wrenched himself back to reality. His chest was heaving up and down.

He clambered to his feet and ran out of the room. The wall parted for him easily, as if sensing his desire to exit. He scooped up the fallen pendant that lay on the opposite side of the wall and ran out of the office back to the top of the glass staircase, where he could see the Moomin mural once more, laid out in all of its innocuous glory.

He opened the pendant. He looked back and forth between the necklace’s photo and the mural down below. There was no mistaking it. In the photo, kid-Renjun wore a T-shirt with the exact same depiction of Moomin as the one inscribed so intricately onto Renjun’s mansion floor.

Tears dripped down his face.

###

The phone in Jeno’s back pocket vibrated with an incoming call. He dug it out and, still sniffling, pressed the accept call button.

“It’s me.”

He nearly dropped the phone over the side of the staircase. “J-Jun. Oh my God.”

He knew he should say something important—ask where Renjun was located, how Jeno could find him, if he was okay, if he had been hurt—

“Taeyong has me,” Renjun said, his voice changing into slow, purposeful Mandarin. Jeno scrambled to comprehend what he was saying. “I can’t divulge much, because he’s right here next to me listening to everything I’m saying. I have to make this quick.”

 _Okay. Okay._ Jeno nodded, even though Renjun couldn’t see it. His whole body vibrated in tension.

“You know that day I took you to the mall?” the boss continued. “And we went to that place. The one you said was like a villain’s lair. Well, I have a lair of my own, and you have to find it.”

 _I did,_ Jeno thought. _I found it. I did._

“Once you find that lair, you’ll have all the pieces. I want you to see it. I need you to. It means the world to me. Can you do that for me?”

 _Tell him_ , Jeno’s thoughts screamed at himself. _Tell him you already saw the paintings. What if this is your last chance to speak with him about this? What if you never talk to him again? What if_ —

No. This wasn’t something that could be discussed over a brief phone call. Jeno had no idea where he would even start. He had to have faith that they would be reunited one day, when they could talk about this face to face, nothing in their way. Not language barriers, not physical barriers, not anything. 

The timing wasn’t right, and so Jeno held his tongue. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll do that.”

“My time is up,” Renjun said. “I have to go. I—”

His voice cracked.

“I love you,” he finished. “You got that, Jeno? _I love you_.”

“Renjun,” Jeno choked out, feeling too much at once. “Don’t lose hope. I’m going to find you, okay? We’re going to see each other again. You—”

The line went dead.

###

Sicheng was being annoying again. He had invited Donghyuck over for dinner, as he did on a monthly basis, but as soon as the meal ended he literally shooed Donghyuck out the door. Donghyuck was half-certain that the reason behind the older’s sudden change in demeanor was that Taeil had been giving him footsies from underneath the dining table throughout the entire meal. _Gah_ , Donghyuck thought. Just like Sicheng to get horny over something so trivial. Those two were probably halfway to heaven right now, tangled together on the couch and kissing the living daylights out of one another.

At least the food had been good. Donghyuck patted his stomach. He was waiting outside Sicheng’s apartment complex, trying to flag down a holo-taxi but with little success.

The air smelled like evening, like a sooty drizzle, like the end of spring. He took off his camouflage-mottled jacket; it was too hot for those things, no matter that he was supposed to keep it on at all times so as not to leave stray arm hairs or skin cells at a crime scene.

“Hyuck? Hyuck!”

Donghyuck turned. There was Mark, running down the sidewalk toward him, waving his hat in the air to attract his attention.

“Markie-poo?” he said, dumbfounded. “What are you doing here?”

The older stopped when he reached him, leaning over to catch his breath. “Just . . . wanted . . . to see you.” He looked up with an earnest grin. “How was work? Looks like you’re in a good mood.”

“Yeah, because you showed up,” Donghyuck said easily. “I texted you I’d be home in twenty minutes.”

Mark straightened up. “Yeah, but I feel like you’re really busy these days and I never get to see you. C’mon, I’ll walk you back to the mansion. We can eat something good there and then go to bed. I bet you’re tired.”

They started off down the sidewalk.

“What?” Mark eventually asked. “No comment about me being boyfriend material? No cajoling to ask me to cook the food for you?” He paused. “Actually, wait, no. I shouldn’t cook it.”

Donghyuck laughed. “You’re right, that would be a disaster. Maybe we can get Jaemin to whip us up something sweet and easy? Taeil already fed me dinner, but I won’t say no to one of Jaemin’s delicious crepes.”

Mark reached out and took Donghyuck’s jacket from him, rolling it up in a bundle under his arm so that he could rest it against his hip. Donghyuck smiled. It was just like old times—back before Mark had died, when the two of them would meet up after the younger’s work was over and the older’s classes were done for the night. The old Mark would walk Donghyuck back to the assassins guild headquarters, making sure to read Donghyuck’s mood and gauge what he needed. After a long job, he might need a pick-me-up, but after a short one, he would need time to calm his tight nerves and relax away from his Haechan moniker. It was a precarious balance, but Mark had never made handling it seem difficult. He probably only did it subconsciously anyway.

“Crazy,” Donghyuck murmured aloud.

“Hmm?” Mark said.

“It’s crazy. That you’re . . . you know, okay with me.”

As if sensing Donghyuck’s suddenly serious mood, Mark nudged the back of his hand against his. In the evening light, their twin tattoos side-by-side looked dark. _LA_ and _LA._ “Pretty sure I have never not been okay with you.”

“I know,” Donghyuck said, hunching in on himself. “I just—I think Jeno might not be.”

“What? Has he said so?”

“Well, he’s never really had a problem with me being an assassin or whatever. I think he just accepted it as part of who I was.” _For better or worse_. “But . . . remember that time when Jeno got stabbed and I punched Renjun in the throat while we were in the waiting room of that hospital?”

Mark laughed, a weak sound. “Uh-huh. Kinda hard to forget.”

“When I ’fessed up to Jeno about it, he said I was too violent,” Donghyuck said. “Well. What he _said_ was that my first thought in these situations is always to use my fists. That hurt me, so I pointed out that I’ve been involved with the guild since I was eight, but Jeno just said that that didn’t matter.”

“It does matter, Hyuck,” Mark said quietly. “Your upbringing is a huge part of who you are.”

“Yeah, okay.” Donghyuck was done using that excuse, though.

“Jeno will always be your best friend—I don’t think you should be afraid of him turning his back on you.”

“No, no, I know that already.”

“So . . . what’s the issue, then? Are you afraid of other people thinking of you as violent?”

“I don’t give a flying fuck about what other people think.” Donghyuck synced his footsteps to match with Mark’s. “I know Jeno will always be there for me, but—I want the person he cares about to be worthwhile. I don’t want him to see me as a villain.”

Mark was silent for a long stretch of time. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay. So, what are you going to do?”

There was nothing but openness in his voice. Conversations like these were important—conversations with open trust, vulnerability, and decisions. Donghyuck ached to reach out, to take Mark’s hand and twine their fingers together and swing their hands between them as they walked. But he kept his hand stubbornly by his side. The timing wasn’t right.

“I’m going to work on it,” he said firmly. “Until then, I think I need time. Is it okay if I put us on hold?”

He stopped to face Mark. The older stopped in his tracks as well, his eyes knowing.

“Will you . . . Can I ask you to wait for me?” Donghyuck asked.

_I want to be worthy of you._

“Always,” Mark said. 

###

Renjun got the feeling that Taeyong was onto him.

“Why Mandarin? You have something to hide.”

“There was nothing to hide,” Renjun said with a bored tone, cross-legged on the floor of his cell. On the other side of the bars, Taeyong was seated in a plush chair with rolling wheels. This was the third time he had confronted Renjun about what exactly he and Jeno had spoken about on that phone call yesterday.

“Then why couldn’t you have just spoken to him in English?” Taeyong demanded.

“Jeno’s learning Chinese and I thought it would be good practice for him.”

“Bullshit. You knew I don’t understand Mandarin, so you used it on purpose.”

“Okay, fine,” Renjun said. “Take it like this. Would you be okay with me reading all the texts that you and Yoonoh send each other?”

Taeyong’s face contorted as if Renjun had just suggested he’d be okay with eating a live vat of cockroaches.

“Exactly. You’d rather encrypt the code, wouldn’t you? So that I wouldn’t be able to read all the disgusting pet names you probably call each other.”

The bars rattled as Taeyong’s boot connected with them. “Don’t turn this on me. And you’re missing the point. Lee Jeno still hasn’t shown up to collect you, which means that whatever you told him in that phone call was definitely not what I asked you to relay to him.”

Renjun rubbed the side of his head gingerly. The ringing in his skull did not help his raging headache, which didn’t go away no matter how much water he drank or how much he slept. He needed food, and he needed it soon. The only bright side to being trapped in this hellhole was the cell keeper, Yuna, who had slipped him some painkillers to help with his incessantly aching nose and watering eyes. He would definitely add her to the Christmas card list.

“Why hasn’t your lieutenant shown up yet?” Taeyong murmured. 

“He’s probably too busy,” Renjun said. “I trained him well. He’ll have no problem being the successor to my company.”

“If your relationship with him is anything like mine with Yoonoh, then he’s got to care about you enough to come fetch you.”

Renjun watched the way Taeyong bounced his knee against the floor, eyes cloudy. He looked jittery, restless. Something was wrong. Nothing rattled the mafia boss this badly.

“Is this really worth it, Lee?” Renjun said at last. “You keeping me here. Isn’t it just a waste of your time?”

“It’s not, if it means Mark gets eliminated,” Taeyong snapped.

“And just why do you care so much about Mark?”

“I don’t care about him, I want him _dead_!”

“That’s the same thing.” 

Taeyong got up from his chair. “I could command Yeji to kidnap your lieutenant. Would that do the trick? . . . No, then another one of your employees would just step up and take his place. I need to pull from the roots.” He paused. “What I need to do is burn your edifice to the ground.”

Renjun’s heartbeat doubled. He struggled to keep any sign of his panic from showing on his face. “Oh?”

“I can dial the weaponsmaster of New York to get some explosives shipped to me before sundown. It’ll level your whole manor down to the ground,” Taeyong said. “The casualties of your dozen employees won’t be a big price to pay, if it translates to getting rid of the deadman you’re sequestering.”

Renjun got to his feet so fast his vision swung. His headache was roaring now, coupled with the jackrabbiting of his heart in his chest. “You can’t.”

Taeyong yawned. “Why not? I thought the great Huang Renjun made it a point to stay away from emotional connection with his staff. You don’t even let them call you by your first name.”

“You leave my staff out of this.” Renjun couldn’t stop thinking about the nine sisters, about Xiao and Wong and Liu and Jisung. Jisung was just a kid. Jisung was Renjun’s _family_. “The dynamite won’t do anything. You can’t kill a deadman that way, didn’t you know?”

It was a lie. Taeyong saw right through it. “Well, there’s no harm in trying.”

Fury welled up in Renjun. This was the worst type of anger, the helpless and all-too-familiar kind that had spurred him to become a mob leader. 

“Congrats, Lee,” he spat out. “Your mother was a horrible person and so are you.”

“Are you trying to call me a son of a bitch? Because that’s such an original insult.”

Renjun bared his teeth. “Don’t pretend like you don’t know about the things your mother _did_ to me, Lee.”

“Oh, is that right?”

“You know what she did. You knew who she was.”

“I’m not the same person as her,” Taeyong said lightly.

Renjun fought to keep from hurling himself against the bars. “Just because you’re not a human trafficker doesn’t mean you’re not evil in different ways! Do you have any idea what I went through? What your mother and her rotten company did to me? To my parents?”

Taeyong tut-tutted. “You lived to tell the tale, didn’t you? It couldn’t have been that bad.”

“Shut the fuck _up_ ,” Renjun said. He had been stewing over this conversation for a long time, planning his words, figuring out the best way to communicate the anger that swallowed him whole every time he thought about the tragedy of his childhood. “The only reason why I haven’t confronted you about this earlier is because I’m a self-respecting man who doesn’t need petty revenge to feel like he’s risen above the people who’ve wronged him. No, I rose above you the moment my name was recognized as the name of Los Angeles’s mafia leader. My name, not yours.”

Taeyong’s eyes darkened. He sat down into his plush chair. “That’s just a title.”

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that,” Renjun bit out.

Taeyong threw his hands in the air. “Well, what do you want me to do? Give you a handwritten card and say I’m sorry? The past is in the past. You should accept that now.”

He said these words with such familiarity, as if they were a mantra. 

All of a sudden, Renjun noticed the way the chair bobbed up and down ever so slightly. That could only mean that Taeyong was jittery . . . restless . . . _nervous_.

“Ah,” he whispered. “I think I get it.”

“Get what?” Taeyong said.

“I know why you’re so afraid of Mark.”

“Anyone would be afraid of that monstrosity.”

“You’re afraid of the past,” Renjun said.

Taeyong shook his head. “Like you said—keep telling yourself that.”

“No, you _are_ afraid of it. Maybe you don’t specialize in human trafficking, but your mother did. How many did she kill?” There had been easily twenty kids like Renjun on his caravan, but he had been the only survivor. “How would you feel if they all came back from the dead to haunt you?”

“That’s . . . what you’re saying is impossible. Even if it were possible for them to be resurrected as sentient creatures, they wouldn’t hold me accountable for my mother’s wrongdoings. You said that you yourself wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be any different.”

Renjun laughed, a sardonic noise. “Do you think those creatures have any semblance of self-respect? They’re deadmen, Lee.” Renjun jabbed a finger down at his abdomen, at the puckered scar there. Taeyong’s eyes lingered on the mark. “Take a long look, Lee. Your mother’s men took my kidney out while I was fully conscious. I was lucky, too—for the other people they captured, it was the brain or the heart.”

“Not that you have either one of those,” Taeyong sneered, after a moment of silence.

There. He was resorting to tactless insults as a diversion.

“You’re scared of the idea of people rising from the dead to seek revenge against you,” Renjun said. “That’s why you want to eradicate Mark, who’s proof that it’s possible for people to be resurrected. But don’t you get it?” Renjun reached up and gripped the bars between them. “Mark is just a special case. He’s not what you have to worry about. Instead, you should be focusing on shutting down Operation Phoenix, which is churning out _actually_ dangerous deadmen by the day.”

Taeyong was silent, nostrils flaring.

Renjun let go of one of the bars. It was time to try something new, to let go of the prejudice and the anger in order to make way for the future.

He reached his hand through the bars. Taeyong quickly retreated, but Renjun’s hand stayed still, long fingers pale and outstretched in the moonlight. 

“Stand with me, Lee,” he said. “We can figure out how to dismantle Operation Phoenix together.”

Delicate quiet.

Taeyong gazed down at that hand between them. “We can’t. You’re my enemy.”

“The government is an opponent to the both of us. And you know how it goes. An enemy of an enemy.”

Taeyong said nothing. Renjun twitched one of his fingers invitingly, the same way he’d beckoned Wong Yukhei to bed so long ago in a penthouse in mainland China. That slimy lawyer had taught him a lot about how to get what he wanted, about how to manipulate so softly it didn’t even feel like wrongdoing. But right now, Renjun knew that what he was doing wasn’t even manipulation. He was just trying to bridge a gap that’d been left to fester for a horrifically long time.

When it became apparent that the older wasn’t going to take his hand, Renjun let out a soft sigh. He began to retract his arm back into his cell.

“Wait,” Taeyong murmured. 

Renjun stopped.

“I need some time to sit on this and discuss with my lieutenant,” said Taeyong. Renjun felt a peculiar pang in his chest at that word, _lieutenant_ , and all the things it meant to himself in particular. “In the meantime, you’re staying here.”

It wasn’t a success, but it could become one. Renjun gave a curt nod.

“And don’t get me wrong. I’m not letting you go.” Taeyong reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a flimsy-looking pseudoplastic tube, tossing it through the bars at Renjun who didn’t move as it landed on the floor. “But here, you might need this.”

Renjun blinked down at it. It was a tube of crude hair dye. “What the hell am I supposed to do with this?”

“Yie is obnoxious,” Taeyong said, gesturing to Renjun’s hair color of choice, which was a delicate mix of blond, purple, and pink. However, because he hadn’t taken a shower in a week, the color was probably dark with grime. “Black is better.”

With his toe Renjun pushed the tube away from him. “You’re ridiculous.”

Taeyong sighed, as if he knew something that Renjun didn’t, and turned away. The slim slope of his shoulders in the dim light made him look smaller than normal.

“Oh, well. Suit yourself.”

He left the room, locking the chamber behind his exit.

Long after he was gone, Renjun sat down and picked up the tube of dye. Was it poison? Did Taeyong want him to drink it and die? _It better not be a fucking pun_ , Renjun thought. He took off the cap and chanced a whiff at the liquid inside, then wrinkled his nose at the smell. Definitely dye.

For now, he placed the tube in the corner of the cell, then curled up on the ground. It was cold of course, especially with him not having a proper shirt, but at least it was almost summertime. The seasons were in his favor. He could only hope that Jeno had properly deciphered the phone call he’d given him, so that he’d have all the pieces to their history.

###

“So . . . ,” Chenle said, drawing the word out nice and long.

Jisung paused by the trash can, where he was throwing away his half-finished soda. He’d bought it in the morning, and since he and his boyfriend had been spending all day walking around town, the carbonated fizz had gone flat. “So . . . . ?” 

“Yeah,” Chenle said. “So.”

Chenle did this a lot: just began a sentence and either lost track of what he wanted to say or became too self-conscious to continue speaking. Right now, the situation was the latter. Jisung could tell by the way Chenle looked deep in thought, his lower lip tugged between his teeth. 

“Nice weather,” Chenle commented absently.

The contempire sky was mildly cloudy. “Yeah,” Jisung agreed. “You hungry? There’s a pretzel stand down the street, near the library.”

As they walked their bikes to the stand, Chenle continued to stay quiet, until finally Jisung nudged him and asked, “You good?”

“That’s what I wanted to ask _you_ ,” Chenle blurted. “This whole deadman thing with the six sisters must be hard on you, huh? You’ve told me that even if you’re not blood-related to them, they’re kind of like your real sisters.”

“Yeah, they kinda are,” Jisung said with a small shrug. “Jeongyeon taught me how to shoot, and Sana always lets me crush her at Holo-Chutes.”

“I thought I was cool for having four older brothers,” Chenle said. “You know, because Donghyuck and Jaemin are basically my siblings. But you have _nine_ of them.”

They reached the pretzel stand. Jisung spent a while studying the menu until he finally selected a large-sized, salty bag of buttered pretzel bites. The bag was warm in his palm as he and Chenle set off to wander around the street a little more. It was a farmer’s market day, where vendors hawked fruits and vegetables they claimed to be completely organic—even though they were likely just pseudo in disguise.

After a little while, Chenle and Jisung found a bench and sat down, taking off their bike helmets and leaning their bikes against the back of the bench. The street was quiet and empty now, and the vendors were beginning to pack up their stalls. The cool summer breeze fluttered through the clearing, lending it a private tranquility.

“I’m glad you think it’s cool I have nine sisters,” Jisung said.

“Of course it’s cool!” Chenle said. “Especially with them being so interesting and talented and all.”

“I know, right? But it’s not like I could tell the kids in my kindergarten that the nine ladies who picked me up from school every day were members of the mafia,” Jisung said. “My classmates thought it was hilarious that I was the youngest of so many girls. They said I must be lonely without a brother to play with. I had Renjun for that, but . . . well.”

“Well what?”

“He was always busy, building his business up from the ground and all.” Jisung frowned. “I was in fourth grade when I made friends with him and somehow persuaded my moms to let him stay in our house.” He laughed a little at the memory. “To this day, I still respect them for taking a strange homeless boy under their wing like that. Especially when they already had their hands full with me, you know? I guess they saw something in him.”

“Has he ever told you about what his life was like before you took him in?” Chenle asked.

“No,” Jisung said. “He’s secretive about it. I bet it’s a painful story.”

“That’s interesting,” Chenle said. He glanced around, checking to make sure that no one was nearby, before he leaned in and spoke in a quiet voice. “There’s a similar situation that happened with Jeno—when _I_ was in fourth grade, I remember Jeno having this really fun best friend who always hung out at our house. One day, though, they fell out of touch. I think he moved away or something? Jeno doesn’t talk about him anymore.”

Jisung hummed. He tore off a chunk of the steaming-hot pretzel and bit into it.

“You must be worried about Renjun and the sisters,” Chenle murmured.

“Jeno and those lawyers will find a way to get Renjun out of whatever jail Taeyong is keeping him in,” Jisung said, lowering his voice to match the severity of the conversation. “That way, when Renjun’s back, the deadman situation can be resolved, the sisters can heal up, and everything can go back to normal.”

“Are you scared?” Chenle asked.

“Of what?”

“Of Renjun maybe not coming back.”

“He will,” Jisung said. “I know he will.”

Chenle was quiet for a moment, before he said, “Well, okay. But what I want you to know is . . . if you’re ever stressing about things, or want to talk about your sisters or Renjun or anything, you can always come to me.”

“Oh, that? I already knew that,” Jisung teased. 

“It’s just, the female squadron holds such a big part of your life, I’m sure you’re worried about them.”

“I am, a little, but they’re strong women,” Jisung said. “I trust them to be okay. After all, they’re the ones who taught me everything I know about girls and how to act around them.” He chuckled. “The hard lessons.”

“Girls?” Chenle said, tensing a little. “What do you mean, girls?”

Jisung’s brow cocked. The atmosphere had gone from solemn to youthful in a matter of moments. “You know, like how to turn one down or ask one out.”

“Have you ever been in love with any of them?”

“Eh. I’ve liked some, but I’m not sure about love.”

Chenle’s eyes were enormous. “ . . . Which sister was it?” he whispered.

Jisung stared at him, then burst into giggles. “Oh, Lele, it’s—no, I’m not talking about the squadron! First of all, they’re lesbians. When I say they taught me how to handle girls, it’s because they have _experience_ asking girls out, not because _I_ asked one of _them_ out. And I told you, even though they’re not my blood siblings, I still treat them like they are. I would never have feelings for one of them. That’s just impossible.” He bit into his pretzel giddily. “Wow.”

Chenle fidgeted. “Look, okay, I don’t know. My brothers never . . . never . . .” He hid his face in his cardigan sleeve. “Okay, never mind.”

“Aww,” Jisung said. He tugged at Chenle’s cardigan. “Your brothers never what?”

“Never talked about sexual orientation stuff with me!” Chenle said, still hiding. “I don’t know how these things work. Mark sat me down one day when I was fourteen and was like, _hey, Lele, so. Uh, we’re going to discuss the birds and bees._ And I said, _um, are you talking about how Donghyuck always calls you a cute little bumblebee? Because I don’t wanna hear about that_ , and he said, _n-no, I’m trying to talk to you about sex_ . And I said, _but I don’t want to hear about the last time you and Donghyuck had sex!_ and then he got really really red and never brought it up again. Sung? Sung, stop laughing.”

“Okay, okay,” Jisung laughed, clutching his stomach. “Sorry. That’s just—that’s funny.”

“Stop,” Chenle wailed, pulling on Jisung’s elbow. “Be serious. I don’t know how these things work. In the historical books, there’s always a big issue between heteronormative people and people who don’t conform, but—that kind of oppression is obsolete now, isn’t it? No one ever gets bullied for being different.”

“Well, in some corners of the world, they do. But yeah, it’s not as bad as it used to be.”

“So . . .” Chenle said, growing serious, and Jisung got the feeling this might be the thing that he had been meaning to ask since the very beginning. “So. Uh. Labels, and stuff. Are you . . . . ? What are you?”

“I dunno,” Jisung shrugged. “Bi, probably. I don’t really think about it.”

“How many people have you dated?”

“Five.”

“ _Five?_ ”

“Well, there’s no need to sound so surprised,” Jisung said.

“But—but when? When did you—”

“Relax, Chenle. It’s in the past. I would never cheat on you with them.”

Chenle looked affronted. “I didn’t say you would,” he said, after waiting for a lady walking her dog to pass by and leave them again in relative privacy.

“Then what’s with all the questions?” Jisung asked.

“I just—” Chenle kicked at the ground. “I don’t know. I’ve never liked anyone but you before. I can’t imagine myself with someone who _isn’t_ you, and I don’t really like the idea of you being attracted to someone who isn’t me.”

Blinking, Jisung looked at him for a while. Chenle’s head was bowed and his long bangs hung over his forehead. Jisung reached out and tucked them behind his ear; Chenle, who was used to this, didn’t flinch.

“I’m not polyamorous,” Jisung said. “And it seems like neither are you. So you don’t have to imagine me being with other people.”

“Yes, but I’m not talking about that. What about if. . .” Chenle took a deep breath. “What about if we break up one day? Then you’ll move on. _You’re_ capable of finding a new crush. I can’t do it that easily. I don’t think I’ll ever like anybody but you. There’s nothing wrong with me, is there? Am I being weird? I don’t want to come across as clingy or possessive or anything, but I just—like—”

Jisung took Chenle’s face in his hands, framing his soft cheeks with his large palms. Effectively shut up, Chenle blinked up at him.

“There is nothing wrong with you,” Jisung said firmly. “You might be demisexual or demiromantic. That means you don’t experience attraction often, but when you do, it’s usually after you establish an emotional connection. It’s completely possible you might develop feelings for more people in the future.” He swallowed. “Are you maybe upset that I’m your only crush so far?”

Cradled in Jisung’s grasp, Chenle’s face increased in temperature. “No, I’m not upset by that—it’s just . . . I don’t want to become your sixth ex, okay? I don’t like that idea. At all.”

Jisung smiled. “Me neither.” He squished Chenle’s cheeks together. “Don’t even think about getting rid of me anytime soon, Lee Chenle. You are mine.”

Chenle grinned back, his lips pursed like a fish’s. “Good.”

“Now, help me finish these pretzels?” Jisung leaned back, letting go of him. “They’re getting cold.”

They finished the pretzel bites, tossed the bag in the trash, and biked home. 

###

Tzuyu felt heavy.

She wanted to stop and ask for water, but she didn’t think she was allowed to speak without being spoken to first by General Hoetaek. He stood on the stage with his hands clasped neatly behind his back and his eyes roving across the massive audience gathered before him in the spacious bunker.

In place, the audience practiced battle drills and offense techniques. Everyone’s bodies moved in the same eerie pace, motions jerky and choppy like puppets on too-tight strings. Why had Tzuyu gotten out of bed tonight and walked ten miles to this stinky place? And why did it feel like this wasn’t the first time this had happened? Why couldn’t she resist?

 _Don’t ask questions_ , the tightness in her chest ordered. _Train._

She trained.

At the end of the night, when the workout was over and the audience was panting and sweaty, General Hoetaek took his place at the stage again.

“Another night of hard work,” he said. “It will all be worth it in the end.”

“Money,” called out one of the members of the audience near the stage. They must have been particularly strong-minded, to still hold the ability to speak out of turn. “Where’s the money you promised us?”

“The time of invitations and monetary compensation is over,” the general replied, deep voice booming through the bunker. He had mastered the technique of sounding responsible, reliable, like a well-meaning grandfather. “It’s about time we did away with the criminal infestation rampant in this contempire, isn’t it? With Operation Lemming perfected, and Operation Phoenix by our side, we will be unstoppable.”

 _Say yes sir,_ the tightness in Tzuyu’s gut commanded.

“Yes, sir,” she said.

Her voice blended with those of three hundred people, all chorusing the same thing at the same time.

###

Wringing his hands, Jeno waited urgently in his office. He didn’t have to sit around long before the two men he was expecting burst into the room.

“This better be important, Lee,” Jungwoo warned as he sat down, patting down his hair which had become disheveled on the run over. 

“Why the sudden SOS call?” Yukhei panted. “First thing in the morning, too? It’s hardly six a.m.”

“I need you two to see something and tell me what you think,” Jeno said, and pushed his chair back so he could stand and pull up the holoscreen of the footage he had spent the past hour poring over. As the aquamarine pixels of light swarmed together to create the thumbnail image, he saw Yukhei’s eyebrows shoot up. The thumbnail was of Tzuyu.

“What’s this?” Jungwoo asked.

“She’s pretty,” Yukhei said.

“She’s my coworker, she works for Renjun as well,” Jeno said, before he pushed his thumb into the holoscreen and it blew up into a thousand tiny prisms of light. The geometric pixels of the video shifted furiously into an immersive 3-D video scene.

“A 360 camera,” said Yukhei in awe. “Now _that’s_ something.”

“Lee, are you showing us a movie?” Jungwoo asked.

“No. This is a hidden camera,” Jeno said. “I got one of my employees to place the cam on Tzuyu’s collar, so we could track where the sisters go every night and what kind of business they are up to.”

“She’s one of the night wanderers?” Yukhei checked.

“Yes,” Jeno said. “She and her sisters as well as an alarming amount of the LA population have been sneaking out night after night to a hidden destination that so far, no one has ever been able to identify. None of the night wanderers can recall their nightly activities after the activities are over. The only way we could find out what was going on was by planting this tracker.”

“Smart,” Jungwoo said, reclining back in his chair. “Well, then, let’s see it.”

The 3-D video began to unfold.

In it was Tzuyu, standing in the middle of an ocean of people that went on for a great distance in every direction. Wherever this place was, it was _big_. In the middle of the auditorium stood a general wearing a navy coat covered in medallions and pins, his hands clasped behind his back as he oversaw the scene occuring in front of him: hundreds of people, practicing punches, kicks, and combos in place. The camera jostled, showing how Tzuyu herself was partaking in the training as well. Despite everyone being as tightly packed as sardines in a can, they moved in an eerily synchronized fashion that maximized their range of movement within the small space they were allotted. No one made mistakes. No one bumped into each other. 

“What is this?” Yukhei muttered.

“Are they robots?” Jungwoo said.

“Watch,” Jeno said.

When the training was over, the general straightened up on the stage and spoke. _Operation Lemming_ , he said. _Operation Phoenix._

Yukhei swore. Jeno stopped the footage.

“What the hell was that?” Jungwoo asked, peering wide-eyed at the holograms. “All those people . . . they blinked in unison. They—they _blinked_ in _unison_.”

“That’s not all,” Jeno said, nerves tingling in his chest. He was on the edge of a precipice, and after this there would be no turning back.

He pressed a button on his remote. In a flash, the aquamarine pixels burst into multicolor, painting the scene with vivid hues that hadn’t previously been visible with the filter. Now, it was clear to see: everyone in the audience had skin tinged a pale, sickly blue, and their eyes were fogged with some sort of unseeing mold. Not only that, but it seemed like everyone there was around the same age range. Twenty to thirty years old.

“Deadmen,” Yukhei said. “The night wanderers are deadmen.”

“Hate to break it to you, but we suspected that already,” Jungwoo said.

“I still don’t get it though. I thought that deadmen came in all ages and acted like rabid animals. Why are all of these normal-ass people exhibiting these strange traits? Why are they acting like the puppets of that general standing on the stage?”

“That general said there are two operations going on,” Jeno said. “Lemming and Phoenix. I did some research on what lemmings are, and apparently they’re an extinct species of rodent often portrayed in media as silly animals who followed each other off cliffs and didn't have minds of their own.”

Yukhei got up off his chair, looking fraught. “You mean the government is possessing these night wanderers? Turning them into—into mindless rodents?”

“Something like that,” Jeno said. “Here’s my hypothesis. I think that the government somehow got its hands on all of these people when they were young. That would explain the consistent age range of all the night wanderers. Maybe the government infiltrated a specific brand of hospitals where the babies were born, and tweaked their DNA? Or injected them with something that somehow put them under the mind control of the government. Turned them into proverbial lemmings.”

“ _What_?” Jungwoo stared at him. “That’s ridiculous. Why would the government do that? And you can’t seriously believe that these people have spent their whole lives under the government’s mind control.”

“No,” Jeno said. “They haven’t. Instead, it’s more like a toggle situation. At any point in time, the government can seize control over the lemmings and force them to do its bidding, but otherwise, the lemmings are perfectly unaware and normal human beings. The toggle has been dormant for all these years until now, which is when these creepy lemming-like deadmen sides are activating.”

Yukhei shook his head. “Hold on. _If_ any of this is true, I want to know what makes you think that Operation Lemming has been going on for such a long time. All the way since these people were infants? Seriously?”

“Six members of my female squadron are lemmings and three of them aren’t,” Jeno said. “What the six lemming members share in common is that they were all born in the same hospital. I hacked into the hospital’s database to gather the names of all the infants born there two to three decades ago, and then I matched those names with the faces of the people they are now. The faces match with the faces of the people in this footage.” Jeno waved his arm at the evidence of the secret training bunker. “The night wanderers are all victims of Operation Lemming. I’ll bet they never knew until now. Participation in this program couldn’t have been a choice on their part.”

“Oh my God, it’s too early for this,” Yukhei muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Jungwoo chewed his lip in deep thought. “There’s a big hole in the story. Why would the night wanderers suddenly become active now, if their deadmen characteristics had been dormant for so long?”

As explanation, Jeno used his remote to rewind the video footage.

The general on the stage proclaimed, _“It’s about time we did away with the criminal infestation rampant in this contempire, isn’t it?”_

“The contempire is in danger,” Jeno said gravely. “The crime syndicate, especially.”

Jungwoo’s jaw drifted open. “I get it,” he said faintly. “The government plans to use Operation Lemming as well as Operation Phoenix to wipe out the corruption of Los Angeles.”

“Which means,” Yukhei added quickly, beginning to catch on as well, “they want to dismantle the mafia circles that this city is so infamous for.”

Jeno swept his arm through the air and the holograms dissipated in a fading flurry of light. “Exactly. I believe this evidence is exactly what we need to convince Taeyong to release Renjun.”

“Seriously?” Yukhei asked. “All of this information you’ve just uncovered, and your only plan is to use it to get Huang Renjun out of jail? Aren’t you afraid at all for the welfare of the contempire?” 

“Why would he be?” Jungwoo snipped. “Huang is our priority here. Don’t even act like _you’re_ concerned about the public being in danger, Xuxi.”

“Okay fine,” Yukhei ceded. “Fine. You’re right.”

“Of course I’m concerned about the welfare of the contempire,” Jeno broke in. “But I can’t handle this on my own—I’m not the mafia leader. Renjun is. We need him if we want to handle this situation.”

He faced his office window, where he could see the contempire and the rising sun that glowed above it.

“Kim? Wong? Prepare yourselves,” Jeno said. “We’re going to stage a jailbreak today.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A brief description of the violence scene for those who may have skipped to the end notes for more info on it: child Renjun is attacked by organ harvesters who literally cut out his kidney in a sloppy impromptu nephrectomy. Child Jeno witnesses the whole thing. This is the event that traumatizes child Jeno to the point of dissociative amnesia about all his Renjun-related memories.
> 
> For the rest of y'all ... I'm sorry for being kinda late with this chapter hnngh my schedule is a wreck pls just bear with me, the end of this fic is in sight and i am soOO excited to see everything finally play out.
> 
> If there's anything in this fic's plot that you're confused about, drop a comment <3 .. or u can just drop one for funnn cuz comments are everything to meee
> 
> ~ Yerin 071420


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this time around, my beta was almost as fast as amazon same-day delivery service lol who's doing it like her? no one that's right no one

Renjun was crouching in his cell, right in front of the mirror and the pseudo-rubber gloves that his cell keeper Yuna had obliged to bring with her. She sat on the other side of the bars, watching as he picked up the gloves and pulled them on.

“Why are you doing this again?” she asked.

“I need to concentrate,” Renjun said as he wrapped his fingers around the cold tube of dye that lay on the floor beside him. “Please. No distractions.”

She rolled her eyes. “Alright, alright, beauty queen. Have your makeover sesh or whatever. I’m sure that changing your hair color is vital to your life at the moment.”

“I said no distractions.”

“Hey. I was the one who brought you these things,” Yuna said, gesturing to the mirror. “Only because Yong said it was okay, though. He gave you that hair dye. Must’ve been for a reason, right?”

That was exactly Renjun’s thinking. Taeyong was a man who thought his actions through, for the most part, and despite Renjun’s initial hesitance to accept the hair dye gift, he had realized that there was a surprising lack of things here to be suspicious about. Even though Taeyong’s boyfriend Yoonoh had found a way to engineer weaponized colors, the dye in Renjun’s hand was in the color of plain black, which meant that Yoonoh couldn’t have invented it. It was too basic. Too cheap. All of Yoonoh’s colors were expensive.

All the same, Renjun didn’t particularly enjoy dyeing his hair with his own two hands like this. Usually he went to a top-notch salon and had it done there.

“Are you sure these gloves are protective enough?” he asked, flexing his fingers experimentally.

“Of course they are,” Yuna said. “They’re the high-quality, indestructible kind that would hold up even if you poured a bucket of acid on them. We had a pair lying around, so I grabbed them for you.”

The gloves, which were cherry-red and had a rubbery texture, certainly looked thick enough. “Thank you.” He squeezed the dye onto his gloved palm, then reached up and spread his fingers through his hair, taking care to watch his reflection in the mirror and make sure he wasn’t missing any strands. Yuna pitched in to tell him he’d forgotten a section on the side, or that he hadn’t used enough for this place or that place, and by the end of it all Renjun’s scalp was stinging with the classic burn of cheap dye.

Forty-five minutes later, he washed the excess dye out of his hair with Yuna’s help, then faced himself in the mirror again. There was no trace of yie, his previous hair color—and he looked like an entirely different person.

He touched his own cheek. There was little fat left there. 

“Losing weight, huh?” Yuna said. “That wouldn’t happen if you just . . . _ate_ something, yeah?”

Renjun looked at her from above the mirror. “Shouldn’t you be at school? I bet you’re like, fourteen. Or fifteen.”

“Sixteen, actually. And today’s a public holiday, didn’t you know? I came to have some fun with the prisoner.”

 _Holiday._ Renjun racked his memory. National Children’s Day . . . was the only holiday he could think of, but it couldn’t be today, could it? That would mean it was already early May. He realized with a jolt that the last time he had seen the outside world was _two weeks_ ago. 

“I need to get out of here,” he muttered, pulling off his gloves.

“Tell me about it,” Yuna yawned. She got up. “Okay, party’s over. I need to go have some me time—hanging out with stinky prisoners is less entertaining than I hoped. You’re _nothing_ like I’d thought you’d be. Everyone said you’d be stuffy, cold, and gross, but you’re only one of those three.”

“Anyone would be gross and stinky after not showering for as long as I have,” Renjun said.

“See! Even you know about how you’re not stuffy or cold. You’re just an average guy, aren’t you?”

“I’m Huang Renjun,” he said, not sure what she was getting at. 

“Yes, but either the rumors have had it wrong all this time or there’s been a recent change in your personality.” Yuna squinted at him. “And if it’s the latter, then there are two explanations. Either you are in fact a doppelganger—”

He snorted.

“—or you’ve fallen in love with someone,” she finished.

Renjun scoffed. “You’re a high schooler! What do you know about love?”

“I’ve been in love for seven years, and I know that it changes a person—it shows you sides of yourself that you didn’t even know existed.”

“Oh really? Seven arduous years?” he challenged. “I bet it’s just an unrequited crush.”

She pushed her bottom lip out. “So what if it’s unrequited?”

“Well, who is this mysterious person?”

As if on cue, the door to the cell slammed open. A girl pounded in, her hair bouncing loose from their two tight braids. She was dressed in Taeyong’s corporate’s uniform, the kind with a dark green vest and knee-high combat boots. Her brown eyes were wide with an unmistakable emotion: fear.

“Chaeryeong?” Yuna said, standing up. “What are you—”

“Get down!” shouted the girl, launching herself at Yuna. 

At that moment, the ceiling exploded.

Renjun covered his head and neck. The entire cell shook on its foundation, like a miniature earthquake, and his head was a ringing cacophony of vibration and the white noise of everything crashing down around him. Pieces of the ceiling bounced off his shoulders, chunks big enough for Renjun to realize that whoever was doing this had selected this particular explosive with great care—not much could break through the walls of this fortress.

What was going on? Was Renjun dreaming?

Sirens were going off in the distance, some smoke detector or emergency protocol alarm. Yuna’s high-pitched scream cut above the din. As the dust rapidly cleared, Renjun could make out two things: one, the bars of his cell had remained miraculously intact, and two, a frantic Yuna was on the floor cradling Chaeryeong’s upper body in her arms. The other girl was unconscious, her legs pinned underneath an enormous block of concrete. Yuna sobbed her name.

“What’s going on?” Renjun demanded. “Is she okay?”

Just then, through the doorway emerged two figures, both imposingly tall and dressed in fine clothing. Lawyer clothing. Renjun stared up at them.

“Kim Jungwoo? Wong Yukhei? What are you doing here?”

Jungwoo sighed. “We’re here because negotiations with Lee Taeyong didn’t go through.”

“What a dumbass, literally,” Yukhei added.

“Hey, let me through,” said a voice— _his_ voice—and Renjun’s heart almost stopped beating.

The lawyers moved aside, parting the way for a third person to enter.

“I’m going to rescue you now, okay?” Jeno said. He wore Taeyong’s green vest paired with the tall boots, and at first glance Renjun could have mistaken him for one of Taeyong’s employees. His hair was brown, now. A solid, beautiful, natural brown. The way it should be.

Renjun all of the sudden became aware of his own hair, dyed dinky black, and his hollow cheeks and thin wrists. He hadn’t lost too much weight in just two weeks of confinement—he had made a point of eating just enough to sustain himself from total starvation—but he had always been slim to begin with, and the change was noticeable enough, judging by the way Jeno’s eyes had gone dark.

“How did you get in here?” Yuna climbed to her feet shakily. She stepped in front of her unconscious friend as if to protect her. “Stay—stay back!”

Jeno strode into the room, eyes not once leaving Renjun’s face even though his words were addressed to Yuna. “Please, stay down. If you don’t resist, no one will get hurt.”

“My friend is already hurt!” she yelled. She reached into her vest compartment, presumably to grab a weapon, but shied back when the two lawyers made to grab her. Smart girl. She knew she was outnumbered.

“Shin, give him the keys,” Renjun spoke up.

She turned on him. “What makes you think I’m going to—”

“Seven years, right?” Renjun interrupted. He jerked his head at Chaeryeong. “It’d be a pity if she were to die right now, right here, when you can still save her. Give Jeno the keys and we’ll help get her unstuck from that rock.”

Stunned, she opened her mouth. Closed it. Looked down at her friend, then looked back up. 

It hadn’t been hard to tell she was in love with her—all it had taken was to listen to the way Yuna said her friend’s name, and it was glaringly obvious.

“Yuna,” Renjun said. “I promise we’ll help you.”

“Who is this girl?” Jeno asked, right before Yuna let out a heart-wrenching sob, tore the holo-keys to Renjun’s cell off from where they hung on her hip, and flung them at Jeno.

He caught them in one swift movement, then ran toward Renjun. Upon the keys’ approach, the matching invisible holo-lock flickered into view from where it was attached to the bars. Jeno jammed the keys into the lock and the bars groaned as they immediately sank downward into the ground, leaving a gaping emptiness. _Freedom_ , Renjun thought.

Jeno hurled himself at Renjun and nearly bowled them both over in a full-bodied hug. 

“I came for you,” Jeno whispered into his ear, squeezing him tight. His arms were warm, strong. “I came. I’m here.”

Renjun felt his eyes fill with sudden, unbidden tears.

Jeno was here. 

“Huang. _Huang_ ,” Yuna said loudly. “I did it. Now do what you promised.”

Jungwoo, one of the lawyers, was standing by the door with his coworker right beside him. “Come on!” he called to Renjun and Jeno. “We don’t have much time—Lee Taeyong will be here with reinforcements any second, and I am frankly not interested in facing a ton of highly trained squadrons who are out for my blood.”

“Let’s go.” Jeno grabbed Renjun’s hand.

He pulled Renjun out of the cell, to the door, but Renjun dug in his heels.

“I promised I’d help her,” he said.

“There’s no time!” Yukhei shouted. “I can see the reinforcements heading down the hallway. If we don’t go now, it’s over!”

Jeno searched Renjun’s eyes, then narrowed his eyes in decision and turned back to the lawyers. “Hey. You two. Help lift the rock off that woman, or I’m not paying you for this job.”

Jungwoo and Yukhei stopped at the door. They let out twin groans and turned back. Quickly they knelt down beside Chaeryeong and braced their hands against the broad side of the block of cement.

“Push on three,” Yukhei said. “Ready? One—”

“Ugh, let’s just get this over with, okay?” Jungwoo interrupted. “Now!”

The lawyers grunted as they leaned both of their combined weights onto the rock. It moved a centimeter, and Chaeryeong cried out. Yuna crawled into the space between Chaeryeong and the adjacent wall, placed both her feet up on the rock, and pushed with all her strength. Jungwoo and Yukhei pushed, pushed _harder_ —

“Too heavy,” one of them gasped.

All of a sudden, three magenta bullets sang through the air past them and buried themselves one after the other into the block of concrete. The acid left behind gaping holes like swiss cheese—Jeno dropped his color gun with a clatter and got to his knees to help push.

With a great groan, the block of concrete turned onto its side, then slipped off Chaeryeong in its entirely. The girl screamed once, then went limp, and Yuna grabbed her and pulled her onto her back in a fireman’s hold.

“Okay. Now we go,” Renjun said, turning toward the exit door.

But it was too late. Into the room swarmed several members of Taeyong’s squadrons, all dressed in matching green uniforms except for one of them who only wore a pair of striped underpants. Renjun recognized most of the soldiers off the bat: Shin Ryujin, Yang Jeongin, Kim Seungmin, and the twins Hwang Hyunjin and Hwang Yeji. Each of them hefted matching nerf guns that Renjun recognized immediately; they were identical to the color gun that Jeno had.

“Great,” Jungwoo sighed, getting to his feet and dusting off his hands. “Now we have to mow through these kids too.”

“No one will be mowing down anyone,” said the soldier in the underpants. “Surrender peacefully and we won’t shoot.” He turned his gun on Jeno. “Especially you there. Put your hands where I can see them.”

In the meantime, Renjun’s eyes were fixed on Hwang Yeji. When she noticed him snarling at her she raised a cool eyebrow back, then twitched her gun, as if reminding him that she was the armed one here. Oh, Renjun itched to get back at her. His nose had hurt for days because of her horrible nxi perfume weapon—he _knew_ that she could’ve done him the basic courtesy of knocking him out the old-fashioned way, instead of possibly permanently ruining his face, but _no_ , she’d had to do it with fucking flair.

His one consolation was that at least his nose didn’t hurt anymore.

“Hey. Felix,” Jeno began in a placating voice. 

“No!” said the underpants guy. “You stole my clothes. Give those back!”

“How am I going to do that if my hands are in the air?”

“No smart talk,” snapped Seungmin. “Up. Hands. Now.”

Jeno took a deep breath and obediently raised his arms in surrender.

The room was silent.

Renjun reeled.

No _. No._ This couldn’t be the end.

His gaze caught on the floor, where beneath the debris he could see the broken shards of the mirror he’d used to dye his hair with. The shards looked like bits of the blue sky that they reflected from the missing gaps in the ceiling above. 

Freedom was so _close_.

An idea struck in Renjun’s head like a bright light. He cried out and stumbled, clutching his side, buckling to his knees as if he’d been shot. As if on instinct, Jeno made for him, but Renjun made a point of collapsing in the other direction, right on top of the pair of rubber gloves he’d left on the ground after dyeing his hair. Around him, Taeyong’s soldiers gathered, and someone yanked him up harshly by the armpits.

Renjun’s hand closed around the gloves. He leapt up, away from Felix’s grasp, and pulled them on with two hard snaps. On the floor a short distance away lay Jeno’s discarded color gun. With his foot he kicked it up off the ground and caught it in his hand.

“Where is that gun from? Put it down,” Felix cautioned.

“Put yours down first,” Renjun sneered, and cocked the gun at him.

Felix fired. Renjun lunged forward, capturing the muzzle of Felix’s gun with his palm. Jeno screamed.

The pressure of the bullet shooting out was jarring enough to shake Renjun’s organs around, but he felt no pain. _Indestructible_ , Yuna had said. She’d been right.

Felix’s eyes widened as he realized his bullet had nowhere to go but rebound. The ammunition ripped backward through the gun, shredding it into bits, then made straight for Felix’s face. He dropped to the floor in a defensive position and the cobalt-blue bullet sailed above—before it could hit one of the soldiers, someone fired a shot of her own straight at the bullet.

She had excellent aim. The bullets collided midair and exploded together in an unexpected display of blinding light that manifested into a burst of thick, itchy fog and seeped through the room. Blind disorient ensued as the room dissolved in shouting. Through the chaos, Renjun seized Jeno’s forearm and pulled him closer.

“Holo-discs,” he shouted into his ear. _You better have them, or I swear to God I’m revoking your status as lieutenant._

Jeno flipped open a compartment in his belt and withdrew several of the discs, tossing them up in the air. Renjun reached out to grab one. With sheer upper body strength of whatever muscles he had left in his torso, he hauled himself upward until he’d gained a good footing on two different discs, and then he grabbed Jeno’s forearm and pulled him up as well. 

“Go, go, go,” Jungwoo shouted, charging through the fog and leaping up onto the final pair of holo-discs. 

“What about me?” Yukhei yelped, futilely grabbing for him.

“Figure something out!” Jungwoo shot back as he rose into the sky.

“I thought we were friends!”

“It’s everybody for themselves!”

Yukhei shoved through Taeyong’s soldiers, most of whom were either doubled over or coughing their lungs out. The lawyer jumped up, launched off of someone’s back, and somehow managed to secure a grip hanging onto the top of the wall.

At this point, Renjun and Jeno had ascended high into the sky, the holo-discs vibrating under their feet. The wind whipped Renjun’s hair into his face and he watched as Yukhei thrust out one of his hands for Jungwoo to grab.

Jungwoo hesitated, seemingly torn. Finally he reached down and grasped Yukhei’s forearm, tugging him upward with an impressive show of strength. 

“What the fuck,” Yukhei gasped as he clung to Jungwoo in their rapid ascent upward. “Dude. I am never trusting you again.”

“Fair enough,” Jungwoo said. 

“How come Huang gets a loyal coworker like Jeno who does all these nice things for him and _rescues him from jail_ while I’m stuck with your selfish, deceiving ass? You completely abandoned me!”

“You would have done the same,” Jungwoo pointed out.

At that, Yukhei fell silent in grudging admittance. 

“They’re getting away!” Seungmin yelled, stabbing a finger upward.

Color bullets pelted after Renjun, painting the sky all sorts of majestic colors: violet, tangerine, salmon, emerald. He gritted his teeth and shifted his weight on the holo-disc beneath his left foot, which triggered the disc to change from its float setting to its flight setting.

He began to skate through the air. 

The contempire was a sprawling metropolis below him—as Renjun rose higher and higher into the sky, the color bullets stopped coming, and his eyes stung from the cold air in the high altitude. All the same, he didn’t stop skating. Jeno was by his side, keeping pace, and behind them the lawyers could be heard, struggling to keep up. They would be fine.

Renjun cast a glance over his shoulder, down at the facility that had been his prison for two weeks. It was located on the outskirts of the contempire and disguised as a small shop. Through the space where the roof had been, Renjun could make out the tiny shape of Chaeryeong being carried away on a white stretcher, and Yuna, standing there watching Renjun go. Her long brown hair blew in the wind.

He raised his arm in farewell. He thought he saw her wave back.

###

When they finally touched down in the front garden of the mansion, Renjun tumbled off his holo-discs and onto the grass, cursing as he tried to massage the cramps out of his feet. Those discs weren’t designed to carry someone through the entirety of a strenuous, high-speed, twenty-minute getaway. He hadn’t had that much physical exertion in such a long time—his sore lungs felt like they were bleeding.

“We made it,” one of the lawyers gasped as the two of them tumbled onto the ground. “Holy shit, we made it.”

Groaning, Renjun rolled onto his back. Jeno leapt off his holo-discs, boots landing softly on the grass, and helped pull him to his feet.

“Hey,” Renjun greeted weakly, once he was upright. 

When Jeno didn’t respond, he raised his head to look up. The other was wearing a serious, intense expression, brows drawn low, hands on hips, face . . . angry? Was he angry with him?

When Renjun asked him this, Jeno’s expression grew even darker.

“Am I angry at you? I’m _furious_ at you! What were you _thinking_?”

“Um—you’ll have to be more specific,” Renjun said, already imagining a thousand things he could’ve done wrong.

“I’m talking about back there, with Felix! You can’t just grab the muzzle of a gun like that, Renjun! Don’t you know anything about how color guns work?” 

Oh. That was what he was worried about? “I’m fine,” Renjun said. He took off his gloves, then wiggled his unharmed fingers at Jeno.

Jeno snatched Renjun’s hands and rotated them back and forth, as if trying to wrap his head around the fact that they were still there. “How . . . ?”

Over his shoulder, Renjun spotted the shape of a person emerging from the front door of the mansion. Several people, actually. The lanky figure of Jisung and the broad frame of Dejun, as well as Jaemin, Donghyuck, Mark, and three of the nine sisters. Renjun stared at them. These were the very people Taeyong had threatened to blow up.

“. . . Renjun? Renjun, are you listening to me.”

He dragged his gaze back to Jeno, who was peering at him worriedly. In Renjun’s head flashed the memory of Jungwoo saying _it’s everybody for themselves_ —and then the image of Chaeryeong smashed under the heavy weight of that stone, with Yuna sobbing over her.

Cold speared through Renjun.

He saw it now.

In this world, a world of hate and violence and tragedy, there was no room for romance. It would only end in pain. No one was safe, much less a relationship—anything could be extinguished in the blink of an eye, smashed underneath the heavy weight of fate.

Before he knew what was happening, Jeno’s arms closed around him in a tight hug. Their bodies were pressed up against each other, as if Jeno were trying to make them become one. He buried his face in Renjun’s shoulder.

“I thought I’d never see you again,” he breathed in Renjun’s ear.

The hug was nice. So, so nice. Renjun felt himself melting into him, arms coming around Jeno’s hips. 

He had missed Jeno so much.

“Can I kiss you? Please let me kiss you,” Jeno said.

 _Yes,_ Renjun thought.

No. No.

No. This wasn’t right.

He shouldn’t be like this, shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be allowing Jeno to _do_ this. There was too much at stake.

 _Fate doesn’t agree with us_.

He had never believed in destiny, but here was Jeno, both different and the same as the child he’d known so many years ago. What was this supposed to mean? He didn’t know and didn’t actually care as much as he should have, but he just didn’t want to hurt Jeno again. He just wanted him to be happy. He would never be happy with Renjun.

Jeno leaned back. When he saw Renjun was crying, he let out a small noise of despair and reached up to thumb away the tears. “Why?” he whispered.

“Why,” Renjun repeated numbly, turning away. He was shaking too hard to kiss Jeno back. A metaphor. It was all a metaphor. Destiny _played_ with him. 

“Jun, what’s wrong? Why are you acting like this?”

“All of the others are watching,” he said weakly.

“Let them watch. I missed you so fucking much,” Jeno said, sounding for all the world like a wreck. 

Renjun bit down on his own tongue so hard that it hurt. “I can’t,” he whispered, and pulled away from him.

The look of absolute betrayal on Jeno’s face struck him to his core. This wasn’t good.

It had never been good to begin with.

###

After the jailbreak, no one had any energy. Even the lawyers, whom Jeno had suspected would immediately pounce to negotiate their payment, went back to their hotel without a peep other than a promise to return the following morning. Renjun’s employees gathered around their boss, each of them wanting to greet him after so long apart, but one look at Renjun’s weary face and slumped shoulders told Jeno that he was too physically drained to partake in any social interaction whatsoever.

“At least eat something,” Kunhang said.

Jeno couldn’t argue against the logic of that. Renjun had gotten thinner, and no doubt his current exhaustion was tied to his lack of proper nourishment. Anger pulsed in Jeno’s fingertips at the thought of Taeyong depriving him of sustenance, but knowing Renjun, he probably refused to eat out of pride or out of hopes he could become skinny enough to slip through the bars. Which he couldn’t have, considering that the bars had been spaced only a few centimeters apart from one another, but well, Jeno couldn’t blame Renjun for being desperate.

“I’ll get you whatever you want,” Jeno said. “What kind of food do you want? Soup? Noodles? Hot pot?”

Hot pot was Renjun’s favorite.

Renjun avoided Jeno’s gaze, as he’d been doing ever since he’d pushed Jeno away in the front lawn ten minutes ago. “Anything is fine.”

He stayed withdrawn and quiet all the way through his meal, and afterwards he took the elevator upstairs to his bedroom, presumably to get a shower and some rest. Jeno didn’t try to follow him. 

Jaemin, sensing his best friend’s distress, came up to his side. “Hey, Jen. It’s probably nothing, he’s just tired and needs to recharge. That’s all.”

“That’s not it,” Jeno said adamantly. 

“Well, okay, but don’t forget that you need to get some rest yourself,” Jaemin said. 

With a jolt, Jeno realized it was already evening. He hadn’t realized it’d gotten so late in the day already—exhaustion ate at his bones, but he couldn’t imagine how he would manage to fall asleep with all these racing thoughts and doubts. Something had to be done.

“How about you start by taking a shower? You smell like rubble and your hair’s a mess. I think it’d be good if you changed into some pajamas, too. I don’t know where you got what you’re wearing, but it’s too small for you.”

Felix’s clothes were indeed a size too small. Although Jeno wouldn’t have _needed_ to steal them and infiltrate his way into Taeyong’s lines if the stubborn mafia boss had just listened to the logic of Jeno’s argument. Instead, Taeyong had just declared Operation Lemming a hoax and a scapegoat that Jeno was using to set Renjun free.

But right now, Jeno couldn’t care less about clandestine government affairs or secret zombie armies. Right now, all he cared about was making sure Renjun was okay.

Jeno turned to Jaemin.

“I feel so confused, Jaem,” he whispered. “Renjun’s shutting me out for no reason. What’s going on?”

Jaemin let out a long breath.

“I don’t know, Jeno. I just don’t know.”

###

Renjun toweled his hair dry and stepped out of his bathroom with a small sigh. So what if his mind was one big mash of turmoil and guilt and all things Jeno related? At least he smelled fresh again.

Back in his cell, he had imagined his first night back at home a thousand different ways: in all of them, he and Jeno would be together. He had thought about holding Jeno close, about kissing his hair, his hands, his mouth—or maybe not doing any of that at all, maybe they would just quietly stay by each other’s sides, all of their shared emotions pooling like lava in the space between them. 

But right now, Renjun’s only wish was for Jeno to leave him alone. 

Jeno was sitting cross-legged on his bed, dressed in an oversized hoodie and a pair of pinstriped pajama pants. Normally, it bothered Renjun when people mismatched their sleepwear, but on Jeno it was just cute.

“I like your hair,” Jeno said. It was the first time he’d spoken since he’d entered, when he’d just silently pushed his way past Renjun’s bedroom door and sat down here to wait until Renjun was done showering.

He wasn’t going to leave anytime soon, that was for sure.

“Thanks,” Renjun said wearily, sitting down on the edge of the bed. The bedstead was so tall that his feet had trouble reaching the floor. “I did it myself.”

“In jail?” There was the sound of the blankets shifting as Jeno got up and crawled over to sit by his side. His legs were so long that his feet rested on the floor, his knees comfortably bent. “How did you manage that?”

“Lee Taeyong gave me a tube of hair dye. It was weird of him. I’m not sure why I went and used it—I hope it wasn’t a bad decision.”

Jeno hummed. “Well, I don’t think there’s such a thing as bad decisions. There’s just choices and we make them and then deal with what comes afterward.”

Silence.

“Is that what you told yourself after you landed yourself a job as my secretary? . . . After you stole from my garden and sentenced yourself to a life by my side.” _You regret it, don’t you?_

“No,” Jeno said. “It’s just a life philosophy that I picked up somewhere.”

“Oh.”

More awkward silence ensued. Renjun swung his legs. He felt like a child, too small for who he was supposed to be.

He cleared his throat. “You don’t have to—”

“You shouldn’t feel that—”

They both fell silent, surprised at speaking at the same time as one another. This was the first time they had been so out of sync; usually they could read each other pretty well. Panic welled up in Renjun. This was a sign, wasn’t it? This was a surefire sign—

“Please,” Jeno broke in. “Jun, please. Stop thinking.”

“Oh, sorry. Now I can’t even think around you, huh?” Renjun retorted.

“That’s right. You should voice your thoughts, so that I can know what’s going through your head. That way, we can have conversations and things.”

“Okay, genius. Thanks for the tip.”

“You can snap at me all you like, but I’m not going to leave. You know that, right?”

“. . . . Right,” Renjun mumbled, throwing him a dirty look. Jeno looked so at home there on the bedspread, his face soft and golden in the candlelight. It was making Renjun feel all kinds of things. “You parasite.”

“Pet names? Is that what we’re doing?” Jeno cracked a small smile. “I would like to vote away from parasite, please and thank you.”

Renjun laughed a little, resting his hands on his own knees and squeezing. A grounding exercise. Jeno noticed it, judging by the way his eyes fell on Renjun’s knees.

He spoke up quietly. “Are you feeling nervous? Uh. We don’t need to do pet names if it bothers you, you know. I just . . . Renjun, I feel like something’s off with you. Did something happen in that prison? I thought we were on the same page about how our, er, feelings for each other, but if that’s not the case, you have to tell me.” He took a breath, and it was a little shaky, the only sign thus far of his uncertainty. “If you changed your mind about me, then I need to know. Okay?”

Renjun stared at the ground. Here it came.

“Jeno, I don’t think we’re meant to be.”

Jeno was silent.

Neither of them said anything for a long time.

 _Now_ , Renjun thought. _Now is when he’s going to get up and leave._ That was what they had all done before—all the people he’d slept with, dated, or flirted with had understood when he brought out the fate card. They were the magic words. If someone didn’t understand how he wasn’t ready to settle down beyond a one night stand or a quick sexual favor that he’d later cash in as leverage, then they at least understood when he said he thought they weren’t compatible. Because who could argue with that? There was nothing left to say.

“Tell me why,” Jeno ordered. “ _Why_ aren’t we meant to be?”

Renjun was at a loss as to why he was still here. “It—um, it was written in the stars.”

“You told me you don’t believe in those things,” Jeno said.

“But you do, don’t you?” Renjun said. “Surely you understand what I mean. I just . . . just don’t think that you and I are destined to love each other.”

“Then what’s this thing I feel in my chest?” Jeno’s hand slid across the bed, bridging the distance between them, and then he lifted Renjun’s palm to his heart where Renjun could feel the fast rhythm of his heartbeat. “What’s _this_ , Renjun?”

Renjun was still for a moment, looking into Jeno’s wide earnest eyes. _Such pretty eyes._ He tore his gaze away and fixed it on the wall opposite him, although he discovered that his mutinous fingers weren’t ready to let go Jeno just quite yet—his fist closed around that handful of his hoodie.

“Renjun. Talk to me,” Jeno whispered, almost begging. “Don’t use those stupid excuses about destiny or stars. How can you do that? Abuse the name of the stars like that, after how you all but gave them to me for my birthday? I don’t believe that you can just cast that aside.”

This was the difference between Jeno and the rest.

The others hadn’t batted an eye when Renjun had given them lame reasons for why he didn’t want to be with them anymore. They had known they didn’t mean anything to him, just as he didn’t mean much to them. 

But they were not Jeno.

Jeno’s next words were a hurt whisper.

“Don’t you . . . don’t you love me?”

Renjun turned toward him so fast that the candle flickered. “I do. I love you,” he said, voice breaking. “I love you to pieces. But we can’t be together, Jeno. You and I—” With his free hand he gestured around at the room. “Just look at us. Because of me, because of _me_ , you’re dragged into all sorts of dangerous situations, like the deadmen uprising and the jailbreak today and—”

“Stop! Stop, we’ve gone over this,” Jeno said. “I told you that I’m fully aware of the dangers.”

“There’s more,” Renjun pressed on. “And this time, it has to do with me. My job is not safe. I am never safe. I could have died there in Taeyong’s cell and you never would have seen me again. That would have hurt you so much, wouldn’t it have? And if we do this—if we start loving each other and calling each other pet names, you and I both know it’s only going to end in disaster. I can’t promise that I won’t take risks for the sake of my job. Your relationship with me has no insurance. You deserve someone better, someone who’s able to love you the way you _expect_ —someone you don’t have to be afraid of _losing_ —”

“Shut up, please just shut up,” Jeno said, pulling him closer with an abrupt burst of force so their faces were mere inches apart.

The proximity made Renjun’s mind go blank.

“I thought you wanted me to voice my thoughts,” he managed to say.

“Yes, but what are you even saying?” Jeno said. “Insurance? Disaster? What do you mean, ‘if we start loving each other?’ Renjun, I started loving you a long time ago. A relationship isn’t a professional alliance or a—a business deal, okay? I don’t need insurance to be with you. There will always be things at stake, but that doesn’t mean you can just back away and say it’s too risky. You need to just let it be. No strings, no expectations—just you and me.”

Renjun stared at him.

All was quiet.

Slowly, he reached for Jeno’s other hand, then raised it up to his own chest. Jeno’s breath quickened. He could feel Renjun’s heartbeat, just as Jeno could feel his, their hands pressed to each others’ pulses, their eyes locked.

Then Jeno let out a sob and leaned in, crushing their mouths together. Renjun immediately moved closer, pushed forward, only half-aware that he was kissing hard enough to bruise, but Jeno just took it—just kissed him back with all the same force and then some. It was fierce. Rough. Maybe even angry. Renjun wanted to kiss all of their problems away. He wanted to just lose himself here, all night.

He braced his hands against the bed on either side of Jeno and leaned in, seeking to win this. Jeno’s abdominal strength held up well, and Renjun’s frame was much slighter than his, but when Renjun slipped his tongue into his mouth Jeno’s arms gave out. He landed on his back on the mattress with a soft _oof_.

On all fours, Renjun blinked down at him. Jeno looked breathtaking like this: his cheeks were flushed, his lips kiss-red, his face alight. He had on his crooked, crescent smile, the one that Renjun loved, and it made him feel hot and hot and hot all over.

“You’re so good to me,” he muttered, dipping down to press their lips together. Softer, this time. Jeno deserved all the softness of the world.

“I can be much better to you.” Jeno slipped his hand around the curve of Renjun’s hip, the nail of his thumb against the waistband of Renjun’s pants. “Let me.”

Renjun arched into his touch instinctively before he remembered his manners. “I want you,” he voiced. “Only if you want me, though.”

Jeno huffed. “Are you kidding? I’ve wanted you for forever by now.” 

_Forever._ The word was so attractive. Maybe because Jeno was the one saying it. Renjun’s breath stuttered.

Jeno’s smile turned shy. “Will you let me?”

Renjun lowered himself to kiss him once more, long and slow. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, please.” 

###

Jeno woke up the next morning with an armful of Renjun and a faceful of warm morning sunshine. It took him a little while to recollect where he was, why he wore no clothes, and how he’d fallen asleep: tired in the best way, drowsy lips and fingers trailing down Renjun’s body in an effort to memorize every inch of him.

A smile invaded Jeno’s face. He tilted his head just a little, to catch a glimpse of Renjun’s face beside him, and saw the other was still fast asleep. Like this, he looked peaceful. Young. His lips were slightly parted, in a pretty way. 

As though sensing that Jeno had awoken, Renjun made a sleepy sound and rolled closer until he was halfway on top of him. Jeno held back a laugh and lay there, unmoving, knowing Renjun was comfy like this. Last night had been so perfect; he didn’t want to break the spell, although he was beginning to think that the blissful daze he felt had little to do with the sex itself and everything to do with Renjun.

When Jeno dropped a kiss onto the top of his head, Renjun mumbled something incoherent.

“What was that?” Jeno asked.

Another round of mumbling.

“I think you’ll have to take your face out of my neck if you want me to hear what you’re saying, love.”

With a small groan of frustration that was more cute than anything, Renjun poked his head up. His eyes were puffy from sleep. “I asked, did you sleep well?”

Yes, it had been the best night of Jeno’s life. “Mhm.”

“No nightmares?”

“A few.” Jeno was used to it by now.

Renjun exhaled and sank back down into the pillow. Or rather, Jeno’s pillow. Renjun hadn’t touched his own all night, preferring to burrow himself as closely as he could into Jeno’s side—which Jeno had zero complaints about, of course. He was more than a little delighted to find that Renjun was shameless about his own clinginess.

“You?”

“Hmm, no,” Renjun said.”Think I was too tired to dream.”

They stayed there for a while, both of them feeling much too soft and fuzzy to move. After a couple minutes, Jeno’s hands began to wander, resting on Renjun’s back and then on the palms of Renjun’s hands and then back to Renjun’s hips. His waist was so small. _God, I’m in love_.

“Breakfast?” Renjun finally suggested. 

“Mm, not yet. Just wanna stay here.”

“Speak for yourself.” Renjun’s stomach growled and Jeno could feel it in his own belly, from the way they were stacked against each other. “Also, I need to brush my teeth.”

“Can you get me my glasses?” Jeno said. “I’m blind right now.”

“Right, right, you old man,” Renjun said. The crisp sheets of the bed made an audible noise as he crawled over on his elbows to reach the nightstand. He passed the glasses to Jeno. 

“The sound quality of your blankets is so fun, like ASMR.”

“Are you telling me that the fun part of being in my bed is . . . the crunchy blankets?”

“That’s the word! Crunchy. Jun, your blankets are crunchy. But soft, also. It’s interesting.”

A chuckle. “Are you gonna put on your glasses or not?”

Jeno slid them on, blinking several times to regain his vision as Renjun came into full view in front of him. He was gorgeous, his messy hair haloed in light. The morning sun clung to his eyelashes, his cheekbones, the slope of his shoulders, as if it didn’t want to let go of him. 

“You look good without clothes on,” Jeno said, without thinking.

“Just as good as I do with clothes on?” Renjun asked.

“No, no. Much better like this.”

Renjun rolled his eyes. To spite him, Jeno let his eyes travel appreciatively down his body, but he stopped at the sight of the large, scrunched scar that marred the side of his lower torso.

He swallowed.

When Renjun noticed what he was looking at, he leaned in to land a kiss on his mouth. Morning breath be damned, Jeno kissed back. Renjun’s fingertips brushed against Jeno’s scar, reminding him that he had one too. 

When they broke apart, reality came back down upon him—the reality where he had to talk to Renjun about the difficult things, about what he’d seen in the clockwork room, about what exactly haunted his nightmares. He took a deep breath.

Breakfast first.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> keep ur eyes out for a possible itzy mafia au spinoff yeah yuna is my bias whatchu gonna do about it???
> 
> anyway btw i have a [cc](https://_regret_me_not) and [twt](https://twitter.com/_regret_me_not) now ... im new to the whole stan twt thing but im excited too! so hit me up there if u want to eheh
> 
> as always, drink water, don't skip meals, stay safe <3
> 
> ~ Yerin 072120


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You've made it to the final chapter ...... Enjoy

The night smelled like indigo, Yoonoh thought.

And it was everywhere—in his nose, his mouth, his ears. He could see it in every crevice of the sky, haunting the clouds and slip-sliding across the flat roofs of unsuspecting buildings. Pedestrians hurried through the streets with their caps pulled low over their heads. It was as if they could sense the indigo, the impending darkness that hinted of more than just a simple storm.

Yoonoh’s mouth twisted to the side. He was on his bedroom balcony, resting his hands lightly on the railing. Why was the sky acting like this? In the Los Angeles contempire, it was never pure blue, but during summer it was usually at least a watery bluish-gray.

The worst part was that although the pedestrians might be vaguely affected by it, they were otherwise unaware. Yoonoh was the only one who could really sense how deeply something was wrong. The abnormal amount of photoreceptors in his eyes picked up the warning signals in the air that were invisible to everyone else—he knew it wasn’t a good idea to tell anyone, though, because they wouldn’t understand. In the holo-movies, people like him would be seen as superheroes with the potential to save the world. But this wasn’t the holo movies, this was real life, and in real life people like him got thrown in asylums if they didn’t hide.

Yoonoh wasn’t a superhero, he was just a freak. And he didn’t have to save the world. Who cared if the universe smelled and tasted weird lately? It wasn’t his problem.

His eye caught on a small shape winging its way across the contempire toward him, and despite himself his lips pulled up in a smile. He waved both of his arms high in the air as greeting, and the silhouette moved faster.

In no time at all, Taeyong was hauling his way up, out of breath and covered in sweat. Yoonoh grasped his wrist and helped him over the balcony railing.

“Hey, babe.”

“I’m so glad I made it here,” Taeyong panted. “Okay, quick.” He started to pull the both of them into the refines of Yoonoh’s bedroom, but Yoonoh took his shoulder to stop him.

“Whoa, hold on. What do you mean, you’re glad you made it here? Is there something wrong?”

Taeyong paused, then let out a sigh. His uniform had come untucked from his journey across the contempire, and his hair was an unstyled mess around his face. “Huang escaped today.”

Yoonoh had known about the rivalry between the two mafia bosses, and he’d been certainly taken aback when Taeyong had gone so far as to kidnap Renjun from Renjun’s own estate, but Taeyong’s business wasn’t Yoonoh’s and he was determined to keep his nose out of his boyfriend’s world as often as he could. By bringing Huang up, though, Taeyong was breaching a line, and Yoonoh could only think of one reason why he might do so.

Taeyong gave him a knowing look. “This involves you,” he said, confirming his suspicions. “You’re in danger.”

Yoonoh let out a long breath. Taeyong’s morals might be gray at times, but he was always a good partner. Loyal, reliable, and, most of all, protective. If there was something that scared him to the point of rushing to Yoonoh’s house in the middle of the night without composing himself first, it could only mean big trouble.

“Is Huang going to kidnap me as retaliation for what you did to him?”

Taeyong winced. “I know you don’t approve of what I did to him. But this is bigger than just the petty dispute between me and him—this has to do with the government. The feds are cooking up something nasty, and if what the Crawlers told me today is true, then the entire contempire is in peril. The deadmen situation is infinitely worse than we thought. I’ve tried my best to keep you on the sidelines of everything so far, but I don’t think I can do it any longer, not when this issue concerns the whole city.”

Yoonoh chewed his lower lip. “You met with the Crawlers? What did they tell you?”

Taeyong explained it quickly to him. Everything about Operation Lemming, about Operation Phoenix, about the government secretly raising a zombie army to overthrow the crime circles of Los Angeles. Yoonoh felt his palms grow sweaty as the explanation wore on to describe the eerie footage Jeno had shown him of Tzuyu and her sisters sneaking away to Operation Lemming in some obscure bunker.

“Well, it’s a good thing you let Renjun go, then!” Yoonoh interrupted. “You two need to work together if either of you want to survive.”

Taeyong hung his head. “I didn’t let him go. He got away, fair and square. But—believe me, I was actually planning to release him sometime soon, I just wanted to discuss with my lieutenant before I made any decisions. The only problem was that Dongyoung’s been out of commission for days by now, and I—I just don’t know what to do without him by my side.”

Yoonoh knew Taeyong’s lieutenant had been suffering from some strange illness lately, but he didn’t know the specifics. “Dongyoung isn't getting better?” 

“No. The blue skin won’t even go away at this point, and a few hours ago, I caught him slipping out of the estate. So I decided to follow him, and—it was Operation Lemming. My very own lieutenant, a lemming. It was just like in the video of Chou Tzuyu. They were in a bunker, and they were all moving like fucking puppets or something! Dongyoung has never been good at combat, you  _ know _ how he’s just a run-of-the-mill, paperwork type of guy, but you never would have known that by the way he was moving back there—he looked like a real, trained soldier. All of the lemmings did.”

The indigo-scented wind ruffled through Yoonoh’s hair. He cursed. Operation Lemming explained the odd indigo that he was seeing and smelling all over the place—it was the zombie underbelly of the contempire, brewing in wait for a final battle where everything would come to a climax

Taeyong continued. “When I was at the bunker, someone saw me. A group of the lemmings chased me out and I had to zipline all the way here.” He raised his arm, showing off his grappling hook. “I managed to shake them off my trail, but they were so fast. Anyone less experienced than me would never have been able to get away.”

Brow furrowed, Yoonoh reached up to cup Taeyong’s face, thumb against the softness of his cheek. “Did they hurt you?”

Taeyong leaned into his palm. “No. But I get the feeling that things are only going to get worse from here on out.”

They stood there for a moment, Taeyong just soaking in the warmth of Yoonoh’s touch. After a while, his eyes slipped shut and his next words came out as a broken whisper.

“I should have accepted Huang’s offer of an alliance while I still had the chance. You know? I shouldn’t have blown off the lawyers. I was so stupid, I accused them of making everything up as a hoax just to get Renjun out of stripes—meanwhile, Dongyoung, my own lieutenant, is a lemming, and I didn’t even find out until tonight.”

“You can still set things right,” Yoonoh reminded him. 

Taeyong opened his eyes. “You mean, I should crawl back to Huang? He hates me, Yoonoh. After what my mom did to his family, he’ll never forgive me.”

Yoonoh carded his fingers through Taeyong’s rough hair, in more of an old habit than anything. “His offer for an alliance might still stand. You won’t know until you ask. Don’t be too proud to ask.”

“I’m not proud.”

“You’re . . . Taeyong, you’re the proudest person I know.”

“Okay, fine,” he grumbled.

“But besides,” Yoonoh added, “people like you and me can’t let our parents’ mistakes hold us back from doing what we need to do.”

Taeyong’s eyes darkened. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. About you being in danger. Yoonoh, part of the reason why Operation Phoenix terrifies the shit out of me is because, well, of course I don’t like the idea of my mother’s victims coming back. But that’s not nearly as worrisome to me as the thought of  _ your _ parents coming back. What then?”

“You mean, what if they’re resurrected?” Yoonoh hummed. “Well, I—I guess I’d love the chance to sock them in their filthy faces.”

“No! If they come back as deadmen, they’ll be practically invincible. They might come for you, hunt you down. To, you know—finish the job.”

Yoonoh waved a dismissive hand, trying not to let on how much indigo had made it inside his lungs by now. Indigo, the color of fear. 

“My parents were already monsters when they were alive; they can’t be much worse when they’re undead,” he said.

Taeyong shook his head “I’m afraid for you, Yoonoh. I don’t want them to hurt you again.”

Yoonoh sighed and turned away, facing the contempire. He took a deep whiff of the summer breeze.

His youth had been full of indigo. Indigo crammed in every corner of his house, staining the carpet where his parents walked, coloring the air whenever his parents had said his name. The bruises around Yoonoh’s eyes and lips had been black-blue, day after day. One night, his parents fought so badly that Yoonoh lay in bed covered in sweat and listening to their senseless screaming. He had been so terrified that they’d come into his room and hurt him. 

The smell of indigo had been everywhere; he had used his pillow to try and suffocate himself to sleep under his pillow, just so he wouldn’t have to smell it anymore.

Just so he could drift away, for a little while, and be colorless for once in his life.

“Yoonoh?” Taeyong said.

“I’m fine,” Yoonoh said. Too quick.

“I won’t let them get to you. I’ll do everything I can to make sure you’re safe.”

Yoonoh faced him. “Everything?”

“Everything.”

“Then go to Huang and ask to join forces with him.”

Before Taeyong could say anything, Yoonoh continued, “It’s what you need to do, Yong. It’s the only way. Neither your company nor his is going to make it out of this if you don’t stand together.”

At that, Taeyong hesitated, then grumbled a  _ fine, okay _ .

“Good. And, by the way—you said the deadmen are invincible, right? Well, the color guns I manufactured with Chungha seem to knock them out just fine. I’ll place an order for more of those as soon as possible. We’re going to give the government a run for their money—after all, don’t they know who we are?”

“Well, if they don’t,” Taeyong said, “they will soon.”

###

Boyfriend Jeno didn’t act very different than regular Jeno did. Renjun was discovering this little by little.

It was the day after their first night together, and Jeno was doing all the typical Jeno things that he always did: took Renjun out to eat, hovered around him constantly, called him nicknames, and smiled at him a lot. It reminded Renjun a lot of a children’s storybook where the main character had given his beau a potent love potion—except after taking the love potion the beau acted exactly the same around him as they did before. Back then, Renjun had dismissed the storybook as a confusing waste of time. But now that he had grown up, he felt he was beginning to understand its connotation.

Jeno had made it his personal assignment to Fatten Huang Renjun Up Again, or at least that was how he phrased it. Kunhang had bemoaned Renjun’s weight loss for a solid five minutes during the physical check-up he’d done on him this morning. 

“That Taeyong is so dreadful,” the doctor had muttered under his breath, flitting around during his inspection. “Starves his prisoners, like some kind of sadist. Unacceptable. Scum of the earth.”

“Will I have any lasting health effects from my time in the cell?” Renjun asked.

“Thankfully, no, as long as you nourish yourself properly over the next span of time to make up for all the calories you’ve lost.”

Good. Renjun didn’t have time or energy to deal with possible repercussions of Taeyong’s abominable prison confinement—he wanted to focus on Jeno.

Just Jeno.

Right now the two of them were at a cafe downtown, sitting near a sunny window and eating a late brunch. Renjun had decided not to wear his mafia uniform, choosing instead a simple white T-shirt with blue jeans. He didn’t want to think about the hidden symbolism of him not wanting to put on the vantablack turtleneck quite yet. Not wanting to return to his responsibilities yet.

“Say ahh,” Jeno said, lifting a forkful of yellow omelet to Renjun’s lips.

Renjun raised an eyebrow. “You know, I can feed myself.”

Jeno wiggled the fork ever so slightly. “No. Ahh.”

Renjun rolled his eyes, then accepted the bite. Satisfied, Jeno returned to his pancakes, which were covered in an abnormal amount of syrup, whipped cream,  _ and _ butter. It seemed Jeno liked having all three. Renjun felt the urge to tease him for being a glutton for sweets, but at the same time he also wanted to say something cheesy about Jeno’s smile being sweeter than any dessert in the world, and both of these combined urges served to cancel each other out and leave Renjun just gazing at Jeno trying to remember what he was thinking about in the first place.

Jeno looked so normal like this, with his oversized hoodie and cargo shorts. He could have passed for any average civilian. No one needed to know that he and Renjun, the couple sitting in the corner of the cafe in the cute red booth with a cup of pseudo-daisies on the table between them, actually headed the largest crime institution in Los Angeles.

Quickly, Jeno popped up, leaned over the table, and kissed Renjun on the corner of his mouth. When he returned to his place he looked very cutely satisfied with himself.

“You missed,” Renjun said. “That was like, my chin.”

“No, I was getting something off,” Jeno said, still beaming.

Renjun blinked, then averted his eyes to the floor in an attempt to hide his rapidly warming face. Okay, maybe Boyfriend Jeno  _ was _ different from the old Jeno. After all, Boyfriend Jeno was allowed to kiss him.

Renjun liked the upgrade.

“WELL, HELLO, HELLO!”

Two large hands smacked onto the surface of the table, inadvertently rattling the silverware along with the daisy centerpiece. The sudden impact startled Jeno but not Renjun, who had seen Yukhei approach.

“HOW’S MY FAVORITE LOVEBIRD COUPLE DOING?” Yukhei boomed, sliding into the seat beside Jeno. “HAVING A ROMANTIC BRUNCH, YES YES, VERY AESTHETIC. TEN OUT OF TEN.”

Renjun exhaled deeply through his nose. “Hello to you too, Wong.”

“JUNGWOO COULDN’T MAKE IT. A BUMMER, I KNOW, BUT—”

Renjun massaged his temples. Nearby people were beginning to give their table strange looks. “Please, Wong. A little quieter.”

“RIGHT. SORRY.” Yukhei cleared his throat. “Sorry. Woo couldn’t make it, but that doesn’t matter because usually only one of us comes to collect the payment anyway.”

“Right,” Jeno said. “Payment. That’s what you’re here for.”

“Am I crashing something?” Yukhei looked between the two of them.

Renjun said nothing in pointed silence. He knew that Yukhei knew he was interrupting. 

But then again, Renjun should have known that he and Jeno wouldn’t have time to lounge around being the happy moony boyfriends he kind of really desperately wanted to be. First and foremost, there were lawyers to compensate. There was the deadmen government conflict to address. There were a hundred apocalyptic things that Renjun had to take care of. No time for sunny carefree brunches at little cafes—it was just work and more work.

“It’s fine,” Jeno said, as if sensing Renjun’s flash of resentment toward Yukhei, who symbolized all of these responsibilities crashing back into his life after just one night of peace and quiet. “I’ll electronically transfer the payment into your company’s shared bank account, where you and Kim can split the earnings up yourselves. Sound good?”

“No,” Renjun spoke up before the lawyer could respond.

“No?” said Jeno.

“Yeah, no. You need to send the money to Kim and Wong’s separate accounts. That way, we ensure that neither one of them has access to the entire sum, so the distribution is fair.”

Yukhei raised both hands. “Whoa, Huang. Are you saying that under the assumption that I will snatch all of Woo’s earnings and run off with them?”

“Yes,” Renjun said bluntly. “Also, I know you’re not just here to receive your compensation. You could have sent a carrier pigeon or an email for that.”

Yukhei straightened his collar. “Fine. I’m here because I’m not sure if your loot has briefed you on the events of your rescue yet, so I wanted to add my two cents to the subject as well.”

Jeno had already told Renjun earlier during this meal about Operation Lemming, about Renjun’s female squadron being lemmings themselves, and about the government’s plan to dismantle the mafia circles of Los Angeles.

Yukhei began. “Here’s what happened yesterday. We showed Taeyong the video evidence of Operation Lemming, hoping he’d let you go after he saw it, but he said it was a hoax. Unbelievable, right? We left his office quietly and politely, and when Jeno saw Felix in the hall, he mugged him of his clothes and badge, then used his badge ID to hack into their HQ map for where they were keeping you. Then we booked it over there and got you out.”

“Yes, you know, I’m actually quite confused about that,” Renjun said. “Why did you come in through the door? When you had already broken through the ceiling? I mean, wasn’t the explosion of the ceiling a little . . . unnecessary?”

“Nonsense!” Yukhei said. “We needed pizzazz! Anyway. We should have stormed Taeyong’s base a long time ago, if it was going to be that easy.”

“It wasn’t easy. Felix will probably never forgive me,” Jeno moped.

Renjun sniffed. “Jen, next time you hire someone to get me out of prison, get a guy who knows the importance of stealth. Due to this man’s paramount need for  _ pizzazz _ , people could have died yesterday.”

Like Yuna, or the girl she was in love with.

“Pshhh, don’t dramatize things,” Yukhei said. “Oh, and by the way, I was wondering how you managed to get that cell keeper girl to help you out back there. The one with the bangs. She was one of Taeyong’s employees, wasn’t she? How did you manage to get her on our side?”

“She wasn’t on our side, she was just desperate to save her friend.”

Yukhei smirked. “Oh, don’t be modest, Huang. You can tell me what it took. Did you get in her pants? Seduce her into submission?”

At that, Renjun actually shot out of his seat, and Jeno had to hurry to restrain him from reaching over the table and strangling Yukhei.

“Whoa! Whoa, okay, Renjun. Hold your horses. Wong, that was out of line.”

“Sorry,” the lawyer said, not looking very sorry.

“I’m not going to tolerate any more sleazy comments,” Renjun snapped.

“Or what? What will you do?”

“He’s just trying to get a rise out of you,” Jeno said to Renjun. “Don’t take the bait.”

Reluctantly, Renjun sat back down.

Yukhei smirked “So it’s true. The great Huang Renjun has changed from the android-like stickler who used to never let anything get under his skin. I guess it’s a testament to how even the strongest of us fall, hmm?”

Jeno frowned. “What do you mean? Renjun hasn’t fallen.”

On the other hand, Renjun knew exactly what Yukhei was saying.

“Fine. Fine, I fell,” he said. “And I did it  _ because _ I am strong, not because I am not. You don’t know what it takes, Yukhei. You wouldn’t understand.”

“You’re right. I wouldn’t.”

They silently glared at each other for a long time. 

“Okay,” Jeno said, drawing out the word in that way he did when he was puzzled about something but didn’t want to address it for fear of making things worse. “Okay. So, uh. Wong? What did you come here to say again?”

Yukhei was back to business in a matter of moments. “Yes, right. I have intel for you from the Pentagon, and it’s that there’s something coming soon, something big and bad. The feds have plans. We have to be on guard.”

“Do you have any specifics?” Jeno asked. “Do you know when or how they’re going to strike?”

“Nope.”

Renjun made a disgusted noise. “You’re the opposite of useful.”

“Wow, way to look a gift horse in the mouth,” Yukhei exclaimed. “I’m trying to help you! I don’t want Los Angeles to crumble into smithereens, you know? I like it here, just like you. Also, who knows what the feds will do once they’ve destroyed LA with their secret zombie army or whatever? Where will they destroy next? Crime is in danger, and I can’t make a living off a world without crime in it. Sorry.”

Renjun felt his holo-phone ping in his back pocket. He dug it out.

It was Dejun, telling him to come back to the mansion to greet some visitors. The text message sounded urgent enough for Renjun to be worried. Surely the mansion hadn’t been compromised?

“I need to go,” he said, standing up. He dug into his wallet and lay a stack of cash down that would surely cover the expenses of the brunch. The cafe could keep the change. “Jen, let’s leave.”

He swiftly exited, the bell on the doorway jingling.

“Wait!” Jeno called, chasing after him. “Where are we going?”

“Dejun says he has something for us to take care of.”

Jeno frowned as he neared Renjun’s side. “Are you sure you’re not just trying to run away from Wong?” 

Renjun snorted. “Why would I run away from him? I’m not afraid of him.”

“Sure, but . . . well, okay. Anyway I’m still confused. What was Wong talking about when he said you fell?”

Despite himself, Renjun smiled. He turned so he could walk backward while still facing Jeno.

“You, love. I fell for you. Now come on, people are waiting.”

###

Sitting in one of the lounges in the mansion, Jaemin bounced his knee nervously and checked his watch for the fourth time. Why was Renjun taking so long? Nearby, Dejun stood with his hands behind his back, having nothing else useful to do after he had already served tea to the visitors. Neither of which had touched any of it, mind you.

Jaemin shot the visitors an uneasy grin. “I’m sorry, this might take a moment.”

One of the men sitting across from him gave Jaemin a well-practiced, dimpled smile to show him it was okay. However, his companion, a scarily handsome man who had his arms crossed firmly over his dark green vest, just raised an eyebrow and said nothing.

He didn’t look happy to be here. Then again, neither was Jaemin. 

At least they didn’t have to wait for very long; after a few more strained minutes of silence, the door to the lounge opened and in entered Renjun and then Jeno, both wearing civvies.  _ Probably returning from a date? _ Jaemin surmised.

Upon viewing the visitor, Renjun inhaled quickly and backed up a couple steps into Jeno, whose hands came up to grasp his shoulders from behind.

“What are you doing here, Lee Taeyong?” Renjun demanded.

Taeyong got up out of his seat quickly. “Huang.”

His companion, the dimpled man, frowned and gestured for him to sit again. After a moment of reluctance, Taeyong settled back down.

“Lee Taeyong? Jung Yoonoh? How did you get in here?” Jeno asked. “And . . . Jaemin? What are you doing here?”

“Exactly,” Jaemin groused. “How did I get roped into this?” One moment, he had been innocently minding his own business out in the lobby, and the next, Dejun had confronted him with two visitors in tow and asked Jaemin to lead them toward one of the lounges. Not one to refuse a request, Jaemin obliged, sneaking inquisitive looks at both the men and Dejun the whole way only to find that Dejun had immersed himself on his phone, probably contacting Renjun to show up as soon as possible.

“I’m here because I wanted to negotiate,” Taeyong said, voice clear in a way that implied he’d practiced what he was going to say. “I’ve been ruminating over what you said to me that night, Huang. Do you remember? We—”

“Of course I remember,” Renjun snapped. “I was shivering half-clothed behind bars while you sat on your plush swivel chair and repeatedly taunted me on the subject of you detonating my property and faculty.”

At that, Dejun stiffened. The dimpled man, Yoonoh, emitted a small gasp and turned to Taeyong with an incredulous look.

Taeyong coughed. “That’s not what happened! You’re twisting my words.”

With a jolt, Jaemin noticed Jeno—the look on his best friend’s face was unlike any Jaemin had ever seen before. Dark, but in a controlled way, which somehow made it even more intimidating.

It seemed that Renjun opened new sides of Jeno that hadn’t existed there before.

“Lee, you’re not welcome here,” Jeno said in a voice cold as ice.

“Yeah. Give me one reason to listen to what you have to say,” Renjun challenged.

Taeyong stabbed a finger at him. “Your hair. I gave you that bottle of hair dye, didn’t I?”

Renjun’s hair was an artificial shade of pitch black.

“Aren’t you curious about my motives?” Taeyong continued. “I did that for a reason. It was to help you.”

“He’s right,” Yoonoh added. “I can testify. Please, just hear us out.”

Jaemin saw both Renjun and Jeno’s eyebrows shoot up at Yoonoh’s choice of words.  _ Us _ .

Finally, Renjun sat down, followed by Jeno, who squished himself right up against his side in that way he did when he wanted to provide emotional support but didn’t quite know how so he settled on physical closeness. Did this mean he and Renjun had finally gotten together? Going out to eat together was nothing new—they’d been on not-dates-but-totally-dates before—but something seemed to have changed. _ They totally slept together,  _ Jaemin thought, eyeing the two.

“Make it quick. What business do you two have here?” Jeno said. 

Taeyong blew out a long breath. “The thing you told me about Operation Lemming . . . I saw it with my own two eyes last night. I believe you now. My own loot is a lemming.”

“You saw it? You mean, you went to the bunker and saw them training?” Jeno asked.

“Yes. It was just like in the video you showed me. I apologize for not believing you to begin with, but as you might understand, the situation between our two enterprises was not one where I was especially inclined to take your word for its face value. That is why I—”

“The situation between us?” Renjun repeated in derision. “Well, hate to break it to you, Lee, but our bad blood hasn’t changed one bit.”

Taeyong huffed. “If you would just hear me out—”

“Why should I? Why should I take your word for its face value? I have no reason to.”

Back and forth, the two of them squabbled, growing increasingly louder with each passing minute. Eventually Yoonoh set his teacup down with a harsh  _ clink _ .

“Enough!” he shouted.

They both fell quiet.

“Let me handle this, babe,” Yoonoh murmured to his boyfriend before straightening up. “Huang. As you already know, I’ve been working with Kim Chungha lately in a dual collaboration project to create a series of weaponized colors. You already know about the color gun project, but there’s something else I’ve been working on—let me show you.” Yoonoh reached for his bag, which lay on the floor by his foot. Before unzipping it, he looked up and added, “Don’t be alarmed.” 

They watched as he withdrew from his bag a large but shallow container that had a thin pseudoplastic cap. He removed the cap, exposing what was inside: a dizzying palette of at least a dozen different exotic colors ranging from nxi to pouer to spiceye. Jaemin blinked several times, trying to adjust his eyes to the unprecedented display of such wildly expensive colors compacted all into one space.

“Here’s how these weapons work.” Yoonoh pulled out a small, handheld remote that had a grid of circular buttons on it. “I can make any color in the palette become acidic at the press of its corresponding button.”

He carefully set the palette box down onto the tea table, then pressed one of the buttons on the grid. Immediately, one of the round wells in the palette that Jaemin recognized as the color pouer began to bubble and hiss. Smoke curled out of the liquid and up to the ceiling, stinging the air with the pungent smell of destruction. Several of the men in the room coughed and put their arms over their noses to block out the smell.

“Don’t cover your eyes. Watch,” Yoonoh urged.

The pouer only sizzled for a few seconds longer before it died off entirely. When the smoke cleared, the carnage was visible—the previously harmless pouer had eaten through its entire well and even through the bottom of the palette container, leaving a dark burn mark on the tea table.

Renjun swore.

“That’s not all,” Yoonoh rushed on. “There’s another function that I designed. If I so wish, I can activate the colors’ weapon features on a worldwide scale, by just another touch of a button. It would instantaneously turn every single one of the corresponding color’s products out into dangerous, unstable, and acidic.”

Jeno made a confused noise. “What? Why would you do that? There are people who use those colors for things like cosmetics or perfume, you can’t just—”

“I know,” Yoonoh said. “Believe me, I understand the level of destruction and chaos that it would bring to the world, as well as to my brand. That’s why my plan was to create an entirely original shade which would have an exclusive purpose as my one and only weaponized color—however, I’m worried that there won’t be enough time for me to construct a color like that in such short notice. The government could strike any day soon to take down the mafia with Operation Phoenix and Lemming. I’ve seen the way that my color weapons work on the deadmen—it’s the most effective weapon against them, and we’ll need a large supply if we want to survive an attack.”

“So . . .” Renjun surveyed the palette. “You’re just going to pick one of these colors, weaponize it, mass-produce it . . . And then what? How do you plan on using this against the deadmen? I can understand the usefulness of a color gun, but this doesn’t seem to have the same practicality.”

“My plan was to pick yie, because of its durable quality, and manufacture it into an explosive. A bomb, made of color. That way, it could have a larger radius of destruction that might be more efficient at taking down the zombies.”

“Hey,” Jeno spoke up, sounding worried. “Wasn’t yie the hair color that Jun had? Before Lee gave him a bottle of black hair dye and told him he should change it?”

Jaemin’s eyes fell on the palette. Sure enough, there was yie, sitting right there. A candidate.

Renjun spoke slowly, as if in realization. “When you gave me that bottle of black dye while I was in prison . . . it was a  _ precaution _ . In case Jung ended up weaponizing yie.”

“Glad to see that you possess a brain cell,” Taeyong said.

Yoonoh swatted him. “Anyway, Huang, imagine how awful it would have been, if you didn’t change your hair color and yie ended up being the selected weapon. Once I activated it, your hair, scalp, and head would’ve all melted right off.”

Jaemin gulped.

Finally, Renjun muttered, “Well. I guess I owe you some thanks, Lee.”

Taeyong’s bout of clapping bordered on obnoxious. “I accept your gratitude.”

“Hey, don’t think that this redeems you in, like, any capacity,” Jeno warned.

Renjun’s gaze slid to Yoonoh. “Anyway. Jung, I thought you didn’t get involved with matters of your boyfriend’s world. You being such an upright, upstanding businessman, of course. If anyone saw you on your way to my estate today, the tabloids would go positively rabid.”

“I’m aware, but we weren’t followed. I have a reason to be here,” Yoonoh said.

“We’re listening,” Jeno said.

Yoonoh cast a side-eye over at Dejun and Jaemin. “I’ll need your employees here to step outside for this part.”

“What?” Jaemin said. “We’re allowed to watch the—the super secret blasto weapon demonstration, but we’re not allowed to know the reason why you’ve created that stuff in the first place?”

“Na is right,” Dejun cut in smoothly. “We ought to stick around. After all, if we leave now, we’ll have far too many unanswered questions—we might start talking around. You wouldn’t want word to get out that the righteous Jung Yoonoh, CEO of the Color Factorial, is brewing up such dangerous material, now would you?”  
Jaemin stared at Dejun. _Wow, he’s good._

“Huang. Order your employees to leave and to keep quiet about this,” Taeyong spoke up, but Yoonoh raised one of his hands to stop him.

“It’s fine, Yong. Whatever. They can stay if they want. Huang—the reason why I’m interested in combating the deadmen operations is because there are some people I know who died long ago and deserve to stay dead for the rest of eternity. They’re enemies. Bad ones. I can’t have them returning to haunt me.”

“Don’t we all know people like that, though?” Renjun said pointedly.

Yoonoh’s eyes narrowed. “Not every person had parents like mine.”

_ Parents _ . Jaemin’s arms instinctively curled closer to hug himself at that word, the one that was so thickly ruined, the one that came with so many ugly memories.

He wondered what exactly Yoonoh’s parents had done to him. 

“If they rose from the grave, I’d be in danger,” Yoonoh said. “Instead of cremating them, I put them in coffins—crappy coffins—the old-fashioned way, because I liked the idea of them rotting away in the ground and being trampled all over the same way they mistreated me as a child. But thanks to Operation Phoenix, that is going to come back and bite me in the ass. I checked their graves last night and found them empty.  _ Empty _ . I got into touch with some of my contacts and found that the three major graveyards of Los Angeles are being raided on a nightly basis. It has to be the government officials, collecting corpses to convert for Operation Phoenix—what other explanation could there be? My parents were buried in one of those graveyards, and once they are resurrected, they  _ will _ come for me.”

“You don’t know that,” Renjun said. “The deadmen procured by Operation Phoenix aren’t sentient. They’re meat bags without brains of their own.”

“The same could be said about the lemmings,” Jeno murmured thoughtfully.

He and Renjun shared a look.

“What did you say?” Yoonoh asked.

“Your parents will most definitely not become lemmings,” Jeno said. “The lemmings are all alive, as well as aged between twenty and thirty years old. I expect your parents are a deal older than that. So if the federals do eventually resurrect your parents, they’ll return as brainless zombies, and in that case there’s nothing to worry about.”

This time, it was Yoonoh and Taeyong who shared a look.

Under the tea table, Jaemin saw Renjun knock his heel against Jeno’s ankle none too lightly, an action that was very much a purposeful reprimand. Uh-oh. Jeno had said something he shouldn’t have.

Yoonoh tucked his griddy remote into his pocket. Taeyong reached for the palette container.

They both stood up.

“I think we’re done here,” Taeyong said.

Renjun stood up, eyeing the container that Taeyong held, whereas Jeno slumped in his seat looking supremely remorseful. 

Jaemin cleared his throat. “Uh,” he said. Instantaneously everyone’s serious gazes shifted to him, and he squirmed under the attention. “If I may. Mr. Jung, sir, I . . . I know what it’s like to be afraid of your parents. Mine—mine aren’t all that great, either. In fact, my family’s a bit of a wreck. Except for my little sister, I love her, we get along good. She’s great. But that’s not my point.” Ugh, he had had a point, where was he going with this? “With the help of my friends, I was able to overcome my parents and get them the help they needed, and I think you can do the same.”

Taeyong made a skeptical noise. “If by helping them you mean obliterating them to smithereens then I agree.”

Yoonoh tilted his head at Jaemin. “What exactly are you trying to suggest?” 

“I’m saying, don’t you think you’d benefit from some closure on the subject of your parents? Defeating them is the first step.”

Dejun jumped in. “Right. What he’s saying is that we have to take into account that the lemmings are highly trained, and that they are under mind control of some seriously ruthless Pentagon generals. If you want to make sure your undead parents become dead again, then you need to stand with us.”

That seemed to be the right thing to say. As Yoonoh and Taeyong turned away to murmur among themselves, Renjun nodded in acknowledgement at Jaemin and Dejun. Jeno pressed a short celebratory kiss against Renjun’s jaw.

_ Well, I’m glad they figured  _ that _ out,  _ Jaemin thought, gazing at the two of them. He couldn’t say he didn’t have initially doubts in them, but, well, it was at least always satisfying to see Jeno happy. 

When Yoonoh and Taeyong were finally done discussing, they turned back.

“Okay,” Taeyong said. “May our alliance begin today. Just to be clear, Huang, we’re only collaborating just this once, and then you and I are going to go our separate ways.”

“I couldn’t have put it better,” Renjun said.

Yoonoh nodded. “So where do we start?”

###

The lemming members of the female squadron snuck out every day now. 

Their time spent training for General Hoetaek’s army was no longer confined to only nighttime. Mina, Momo, Sana, and Renjun—although he was hesitant to admit it—looked on in helpless dismay at the sight of their comrades falling victim to mind control. 

Everyone was expending all their pent-up energy on preparing for the quickly approaching rise of the army.

Yoonoh visited Renjun’s estate every afternoon now. It had only been a few days since the alliance agreement, but plenty had already been accomplished.

Renjun had brought his deceased deadman corpse specimen out of his body fridge for Yoonoh to study. When Yoonoh had seen it, his eyes had gone enormous and he’d stared at it for a couple seconds before Renjun had asked if everything was all right.

“Yeah,” made out Yoonoh. “It’s just—I’ve never seen—”

“The sight’s a little gruesome, huh?” Jeno said.

“No, it’s not that. The color of its skin . . .” Yoonoh crept forward, peering cautiously over the table in which the zombie’s limbs were stretched out like a grotesque moldy starfish. He prodded at one of its claws with his gloved finger. “That’s bloodblue. Oh my God. I had no idea it occurred naturally in the wild like this.”

“Eh. Well, I wouldn’t exactly call deadmen a natural phenomenon,” Jeno said.

Ignoring him, Yoonoh prodded at the deadman’s forearm with his gloved finger and shuddered. “Oh yeah, that’s bloodblue all right. I can feel the color through the gloves,” he said. “It’s strong on the eyes too. Can’t smell it, though, because it’s been frozen for so long that the stench is gone, but . . . that’s definitely my color.”

Renjun shook his head, barely able to follow along. Yoonoh had synesthesia to the maximum capacity—it seemed like every single one of his senses was intertwined, meshed with one another so that colors had smells and tastes and textures. His abilities came with the special perk of being able to sense danger in the air? Or something like that. It came in the form of the color indigo. Every day he gave Renjun an update on how much indigo the city was accumulating, how much fear and stress was breeding. It stemmed from Operations Lemming and Phoenix, he insisted. The city wouldn’t go back to normal until the final uprising. Which was coming soon.

“How’d you capture this deadman, anyway?” Yoonoh asked. “On what occasion did you run into something like this?”

To Renjun’s immense interest, Jeno blushed darkly. 

“Oh, you know,” Renjun said. “Just doing my civic duty. Patrolling the contempire for zombies on the regular.”

After Yoonoh left the lab to grab a drink of water, Renjun turned a teasing smile on Jeno, who cast his eyes at the floor.

“Why so bashful?”

“I just—you know. When we hunted this deadman . . . that night . . . I mean, you—that night—”

Renjun clucked his tongue. “The night I shoved you up against an alley wall and kissed you within an inch of your life? Oh, yes. I remember.”

“Yeah. I . . . I think about it a lot.”

“I’m sure you do,” Renjun purred, closing in.

At that moment, Yoonoh opened the lab door again, oblivious to the fact that he’d just interrupted what might have very well turned into a steamy makeout session right above the deadman’s body. “Okay, I’ve crunched the numbers,” he announced. “We’ll go with bloodblue for the weapon. I’ll make the final adjustments on the algorithms, and it’ll turn bloodblue into a color with sentience, one that will shoot down all the things that are not meant to be alive.”

“Will the lemmings die?” Jeno spoke up, back to business in an instant. “They’ve got blue skin too, but I don’t think they deserve to perish. They’re just regular people after all.”

“Only the deadmen from Operation Phoenix will be affected by the blast. I’m thinking maybe a bomb, of sorts? We can style it so that it’s an explosive made of bloodblue . . . . I think an explosive would have the best range of damage. What do you think?”

“That sounds promising,” Renjun said. “The downside of an explosive is the collateral damage it’ll inflict on the city’s infrastructure.”

“We can evacuate the city?” Jeno offered.

“Too hard,” Yoonoh dismissed. “There are millions of people living here. If my calculations are right, the final deadman uprising is bound to happen in just a few days, which means we don’t have the gift of time.”

“We’ll just have to spread the news for citizens to lock down and take cover during the time of the attack,” Renjun said.

With that, the day’s work was finished.

  
  


As they were leaving the lab, Jeno sidled up behind Renjun to rest an arm around his waist. He nuzzled into Renjun’s neck like a cat.

“Hey, stop,” Renjun said, resisting his touch. “Your brother and mine are spying on us.”

Jeno’s head poked up just in time to see two heads, one of pink hair and the other of black, disappear behind the nearest hallway pillar.

“Let’s get out of here,” Renjun said, walking away.

Jeno hurried to catch up. If he was surprised at the instance of Renjun calling Jisung his brother, he didn’t show it. Renjun supposed no one was actually surprised that he’d recently stopped hiding behind labels and last names—maybe his circle of acquaintances and half-friends knew him better than he’d given them credit for for the past eight years.

###

Hidden behind the pillar, Chenle nudged Jisung with his bony elbow. The taller wheezed at the sudden contact.

“Did you hear what they were saying?”

“Well, yes, we  _ were _ spying on them for the past two hours,” Jisung offered, rubbing his sore ribs. “Jung Yoonoh seems to know his stuff. I think we’re in good hands.”

“He said that the bloodblue blast would decimate all of the Operation Phoenix deadmen. Isn’t Mark one of the Operation Phoenix deadmen?”

Jisung went quiet.

They both stared at each other.

“Uh-oh.” 

###

The club was especially loud today. Suspended halfway up the pole, Jaemin stretched his body, tucking his knees in and tilting his head back while his loose hair fell over his face. He blew it out of the way, trying not to seem too impatient.

The patrons cheered. Jaemin swung his legs up and over in a graceful arc. The cling of his palms against the smooth coolness of the pole was familiar and comforting—he struck another pose.

The backs of his knees ached. He couldn’t keep this up for long.

Panting but careful to keep his trademark smile on his face, Jaemin’s eyes flickered to the decent pile of cash down at the base of the pole before wandering across the club searching for the figure he knew would be there. Kevin was currently serving beer to a crowd of customers, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows in that way he knew Jaemin liked.

He noticed Jaemin’s gaze and sent him a quick smile. Feeling a new burst of energy, Jaemin took a deep breath and prepared to resume his dancing.

He stopped when the music suddenly cut off.

The club was silent, in surprise, before after a couple moments, the crowd started to murmur in disrest. Jaemin craned his head to check on the deejay and saw she was missing from her spot. He frowned.

Just then, a piercing scream shot through the air. Jaemin slipped entirely and crashed to the ground. More screams, and then the roar of something that was definitely not human. It sounded like a bear, or a tiger, or a—

Deadman.

Jaemin scrambled to his feet. Where was Kevin?

“Jaemin!” There he was, pushing through the surging crowd. “What’s going on? Are you—”

A blue shape loomed behind him.

“Get down!” Jaemin screamed.

Kevin dropped to the floor. The deadman swiped at the empty air, its elongated fingernail-claws dripping with blood, and Jaemin instinctively hauled his ass back up the pole because he’d read somewhere supposed to get to high ground when confronted with aggressive animals. From this elevation he could make out the slumped shape of the poor deejay on the floor in a puddle of her own blood.

The zombie stomped. Kevin shrieked and tried to crawl away. 

Jaemin’s heart pounded. He had an idea. A stupid idea. A gallant idea.

Jaemin launched himself onto the monster’s back, clinging to it like a koala. The deadman roared and bucked but Jaemin held tight, sitting somewhat lopsidedly on its shoulders as he pulled its hair and dug his fingers into its eyeballs. God, the beast smelled nasty, and its skin had a horrible texture, rough but slippery all at the same time. 

Panting, Kevin picked up one of the nearby props, which happened to be a cane, and screwed his eyes shut before whacking the deadman in the groin as hard as he could. Apparently, zombie parts were still tender. The deadman crumpled and Jaemin hopped off its shoulders, grabbed Kevin by the wrist, and ran.

“What  _ was _ that thing?” Kevin yelled as they fled the strip club. 

Jaemin just shook his head and kept running.

Sirens wailed in the night.

###

“—and we barely got away and I think someone got killed and I don’t know if Ten and Johnny made it out and what even happened why was there a monster in the club how did it get there where did it come from what—”

“Jaemin! Jaemin, slow down!” Jeno held up his hands. “You’re not making any sense. What happened?”

Jaemin’s good-looking companion was out of breath but still able to form coherent sentences. “It looked like a zombie. It attacked the club. I’m Kevin.”

Jeno stared at him. “Jeno.”

What was he supposed to do now? Operation Phoenix was becoming more and more active by the day. The police department had called to let them know they’d seen more deadmen skulking about in the depths of the city—the government had probably let a couple of them loose as an appetizer before they unleashed the whole of the army and decimated the contempire. Shit.

“It’s okay now,” Jeno said to Jaemin. “You’re safe here. I’ll look into what happened, alright?”

His friend nodded shakily.

“Is this where you live, Jaem?” asked Kevin, glancing around at the lobby of the mansion. “Because wow.”

Jeno ushered the couple upstairs, where they would take up residence in Jaemin’s bedroom. Jeno didn’t sleep there anymore, since he slept with Renjun at the top floor. “Get some rest, alright?” he said.

If only he heeded his own words. Jeno spent the remainder of the night toiling over testing the prototypes of the bloodblue color bombs, thinking again and again that they had to get this right. If they didn’t, then it wouldn’t just be a strip club getting destroyed. It would be much worse.

###

It was the third night in a row that Donghyuck’s shift had been cancelled. He was disappointed but not surprised, seeing as Irene had warned the members of the guild beforehand that business might start slowing down. Tonight, instead of wearing his signature camouflage-mottled outfit and prowling around the city as Haechan, Donghyuck played ping pong by himself in one of Huang’s mansion’s many game rooms.

The lightweight ball bounced back and forth between the wall and Donghyuck’s paddle. The TV was murmuring in the background, but he wasn’t listening. It was just news reports on the LA curfew, the LA lockdown, the LA this or the LA that.

Donghyuck knew things would get worse before they got better. The final attack was scheduled for two days from now and everyone in Huang’s estate was antsy—Jeno and Renjun worked as if they were tireless, clearing out every single bloodblue item in the premises as well as creating multiple plans of attack in collaboration with Taeyong’s squadrons to take down Hoetaek.

Donghyuck wasn’t fooled. Jeno might seem tireless at first glance, but upon closer look, it was obvious in all the small ways that he was exhausted. Renjun was the same. Donghyuck could only be glad that at least the two of those insufferable pining (well, not so much pining anymore) lovebirds had each other.

“Hyuck? You okay?”

Donghyuck accidentally hit the ping pong ball with a bit too much force. It ricocheted off the wall and Mark, standing, near the door, caught it in his fist. Donghyuck hadn’t even seen him come in.

His heart twisted at the sight of Mark wearing an old hoodie with a baseball cap pulled over his head. Mark only put on hats when he thought his hair was too messy; no matter how many times Donghyuck told him he loved his messy curly hair, Mark was stubbornly shy about it. What a baby. Donghyuck’s baby.

The TV crackled with another announcement. “ _ The LA Police Department has issued a citywide lockdown ordering all normal citizens to stay indoors. Crowds are instructed to avoid interaction with any of the victims of the mysterious illness that causes them to experience symptoms such as sleepwalking, pallor, and lack of autonomy.” _

_ “Is this the apocalypse?”  _ asked the anchor’s co-host. “ _ Is World War Z finally upon us?” _

_ “Nonsense, the LA mayor has publicly announced that there is nothing to be afraid of and that the situation is under control.” _

“Under control, my ass,” muttered Donghyuck. 

“How are you feeling?” Mark asked.

Of course he remembered to ask how he was feeling—even in the midst of an impending apocalypse, even when his own life was at stake here more than Donghyuck’s, he was just like that.

“Not great,” Donghyuck said. “Just a little on edge. What’s new?”

“I thought you might be worried.”

And Donghyuck  _ was _ worried. Every time he thought about what Chenle and Jisung had relayed to him—that the bloodblue blast had the potential to take out Mark as well as the rest of the deadmen—a new surge of anxiety and dread welled up in him. When he’d brought the issue up to Jeno, Jeno had been shocked at his own lack of foresight.

_ The mod will probably protect me _ , Mark had assured all of them, upon being notified of the new danger.  _ You know? It’s done a good job of saving my butt this far, so I think we should trust it. _

He was only saying this because there was nothing they could do about it. Donghyuck  _ knew _ so. Mark was selfless, optimistic. Donghyuck was not. Donghyuck wanted to make Yoonoh call off the weapon, even if it meant the entire contempire would fall—because what was a contempire compared to Mark?

Donghyuck didn’t voice these thoughts, hoping Mark was grateful for his doing so. Mark would probably disapprove if Donghyuck spoke about how he valued his life more than the lives of millions. 

Presently, Mark spoke up again. “Yeah, well. I thought you might be worried that you’re losing business lately.” 

“Oh?” Donghyuck said. He set his ping pong paddle down. “Nah, business will pick up again. There are ups and downs but otherwise it’s pretty consistent, you know? People everywhere are out to get other people everywhere.”

Mark’s brow furrowed. “But if the government’s plans go through, then the assassin’s guild will be dismantled . . . won’t it?”

Donghyuck hesitated. Shit. “My boss is talented with words and secrecy. She’ll make sure we don’t get shut down.”  _ Probably _ .

“Well, that’s what everyone said about Renjun and Taeyong, but here we are,” Mark said. He lay the ping pong ball down onto the table, then reached into his hoodie’s kangaroo pocket and pulled out a pseudoglass bottle of Coke. 

They leaned against the wall, side-by-side and passing the drink between them as they alternated sips.  _ Indirect kiss _ , Donghyuck’s brain helpfully supplied, but he quashed the thought fast. He had put his and Mark’s budding romance (or whatever it was) on hold for now, at least until he sorted out how to become the kind of person he wanted to be.

“LA’s in turmoil,” Mark murmured, halfway into the Coke bottle. It made his voice sound distorted. “I’ve never seen anything like it. Although technically speaking, I’ve been alive for like less than a year, so it’s not there’s a lot I can really compare it to.”

“You’ve been alive for twenty-three years,” Donghyuck said.

“Doesn’t feel like it.”

“Well, whatever. Age is just a number.”

“Oh, is that why you bully me into being your friend?” Mark teased. “Because you’ve cast aside the traditional values of deference toward elders?”

“Fuck tradition. Make way for Haechan.”

Mark laughed, and Donghyuck’s heart squeezed. Oh, he loved him. 

“Actually to be honest . . .” Mark shuffled his feet, suddenly growing shy, “sometimes when I look at you, I feel like—like I’ve been alive for much longer than I actually have? I dunno. It’s got me thinking things. It’s like . . .” For a moment he struggled with words. Donghyuck was patient. “It’s like, I somehow am aware that I knew you before, and  _ before _ before. Like I’ve always known you, forever. You, uh, you make me feel that way. That makes no sense. I’m so sorry. You know what I mean though, right?”

Donghyuck ‘s mouth opened and shut.

Oh, he  _ loved _ him.

The TV rumbled with some more announcements. “ _ No one knows what’s going on. Something’s wrong here. Something’s wrong with LA.” _

Donghyuck turned to Mark, feeling decisive. 

“Love always,” he blurted out. “It’s what the tattoo means. On our wrists. You know the ones.” He lifted up his arm in demonstration, as if Mark wasn’t already aware of the letters inked into his skin. “It’s funny that it also spells out the abbreviation for Los Angeles, weird how that works out, huh?”

Mark’s face broke into a smile. “Love always. I like that. How come you’ve never told me what it meant before? I was dying to know.”

“The timing didn’t feel right before? But then just now you said all that sappy stuff about me being your forever, or whatever, and then I got sentimental and—the TV keeps saying LA so—I just thought—”

“It’s all good, Hyuck,” Mark said, eyes soft. “I got you.”

They stood there. One of them started smiling. The other did too. They stood there smiling at each other. It was dorky.  _ We’re dorks _ , Donghyuck thought, and found that he didn’t even care—like, at all.

###

Yangyang breathed in the smell of sweat and adrenaline. Tonight was going to be a great night.

He flexed his hands on the steering wheel of his race car and revved the engine, just for kicks, then smirked at the way the driver in the lane beside him sent him a dirty look. After a long day of school and carrying out Renjun’s orders, Yangyang was ready to destress with a nice mind-melting race. Preferably one that ended with him getting a gold trophy. His plan was to arrive at the finish line first, climb out of his car, throw his helmet down in victory, and scream with his whole chest,  _ who says kids can’t drive? _

The whistle blew with an ear splitting shriek and the eight race cars took off, Yangyang included, his foot resting steadily on the pedal. He let out a laugh of delight when he drifted past the front car with the new steering trick he and Jaemin had come up with together. It was a risky move, but he loved it. 

He applied a tiny bit more pressure and allowed the rhythm of his race car’s engine to soothe his nerves. He was first by a mile. The other cars were far behind him. Victory was going to be his. He was going to—

Something big popped up in front of his car. Yangyang eyes widened and he slammed the brakes, reeling off-course and into the adjacent lane. His car buzzed wildly, upset at the fact that her glide had been interrupted, and Yangyang poked his head over the top of the wheel.

“Hey! What the hell, man? Get off the—”

He stopped. In the headlights of the car, it was hard to make out the details, but at first glance it was obvious the person he had hit was too big, their shoulders too bulky, their hair gross and oily and unwashed. The scariest part was that they’d almost been bowled over by a racecar but they didn’t even look like they’d budged. 

And then they turned around.

Yangyang jolted. Bloodblue skin. __

_ Not a person not a person not a person not a person— _

A car honked to get him out of their lane. At the horn, the deadman lunged, throwing itself onto Yangyang’s windshield and eliciting a terrified shriek. With Yangyang screaming his head off, the deadman swiftly clambered across the windshield and onto the roof, heading straight for the car that had honked. It moved rapidly on all fours, like a stocky lizard.

The distant screams of the crowd were audible. 

Yangyang forced himself to stop screaming so he could think a little about what exactly he should do.  _ Well, what’s life without a little zombie attack here and there?  _ he tried to console himself.

He unbuckled his seat belt and opened his roof, then climbed up on the seat and aimed his gun at the monster that was currently trying to bash its way into the windshield of some poor car.  _ One deadman, nothing to worry about. Piece of cake.  _ Jaemin loved making cake. Jaemin the cake-lover had been attacked by a deadman not too long ago.  _ Jaemin _ had made it out alive. Surely Yangyang would as well?

As he closed one eye and tried to get a good shot at the deadman, a dark shape flickered at the corner of his vision. He lowered his gun and stared. 

It was a horde of dark shapes streaking across the race track.

Not just one deadman. There were many.

They swarmed the track, clambering like ravenous beasts onto the race cars that one by one slowed to a halt. One of the drivers tried to mow a few of the monsters down with their car, but it did nothing; instead, the deadmen just roared, grasped the front of the car by its decorative dragon headpiece, and lifted the entire thing up into the air—before slamming it down on the ground with a ferocious crashing noise. The driver’s scream was lost in the chaos.

All hell was breaking loose. The zombies were everywhere. Yangyang’s head whipped back and forth—he cursed when he saw that the crowd around the track had scattered, some of the sobbing spectators pinned to the ground by deadmen.

He distractedly patted the roof of his car to calm her down. She was buzzing up a nervous storm.

What was he supposed to do? How could he take down all these deadmen at once?

His car was not having it. With a whir, she started off. Yangyang yelped and clutched to a handhold.

When race cars got scared, not even their owners could control them. That was the problem with holo-racing: the cars were unreliable, too flighty. Like horses, except horses were extinct, and the cars were more dangerous in that they never got tired. 

His car was accosted by several deadmen who jumped up onto her hood. Yangyang struggled to raise his gun past the piercing wind that pinned his arms to his sides and pushed against every inch of his body. He could barely stand upright when he was driving at over a hundred miles an hour—how was he supposed to shoot—?

A deadman pounced. Yangyang panicked and bashed it in the face with the flat of his gun. It didn’t do much to deter it at first, but when he shifted his grip and jammed the nozzle against its temple and squeezed the trigger, his shot promptly blew the zombie’s eye out of its head. 

One down. It reeled and tumbled off the car, accidentally taking its companion with it. Yangyang shot that one too, just to be safe. Sensing that the danger was averted, the roof of the race car started to close, so he ducked down and settled back into the driver’s seat. 

As he drove away, he cast a glance in the rearview mirror. The race track was in shambles. Dark shapes littered the fluorescence of the holo-track, shapes that Yangyang sincerely hoped weren’t bodies, because ew.

He let out a sigh directed at his car.

“Sorry about that, girl. I guess we couldn’t win tonight, eh?”

The car whirred. It probably meant she was still upset at him.

They zoomed past the finish line, first by a mile, except Yangyang did not get out of his car and throw his helmet at the ground in victory, he just quietly kept driving along with a tight feeling in his gut. The boss would not be happy about any of this, and Yangyang had the feeling his unhappiness would have very little to do with Yangyang’s lack of a gold trophy. 

###

“Renjun?

“Jun?

“Junnie? Oh, there you are.”

He found Renjun in his bedroom, on the floor with his back against the foot of the bed, a holo-pad in his hand and his head tilted back to rest on the mattress. Jeno winced at how tired he looked. The screen of the holo-pad was dim from disuse.

“What is it, love,” Renjun mumbled, eyes not opening.

Jeno sat down beside him. “There’s bad news.”

Renjun massaged his temples. “Do I really want to know?”

“Unfortunately, yes you do. Yangyang just got back from a deadman outbreak at the race track. From the way he described it, it was like Jaemin’s incident at the strip club, except this time it wasn’t just one deadman—it was at least a dozen, maybe two dozen.”

Renjun swore.

“They’re hunting,” he said adamantly. “Hunting criminal activity, like the club and the track. Next it’ll be us. Did Yangyang say there were any casualties?”

“He said he can’t be sure.”

Renjun sighed and leaned his forehead against Jeno’s shoulder in an expression of quiet fatigue. After a moment Jeno tugged on his hand and helped him stand up, then maneuvered the two of them over to the bed, where Renjun sank his head into the pillow and stretched his arms and legs out.

Even spread-eagled, he didn’t cover even half of the surface area of the bed. Which Jeno found immeasurably cute. Renjun was just really cute. 

Renjun spoke, oblivious to how cute he was. “There’s nothing else left to do before tomorrow, is there? We just have to wait.”

“Mmm.” Jeno carded his fingers through Renjun’s black hair, watching the way the gelled style became messy under his hands.

“I have to tell you something,” he whispered.

“What?” Renjun said.

“It’s a big something.”

“Isn’t everything?”

“It’s . . . about us.”

Renjun hummed, not looking particularly worried. “I love us.”

“I do too. It’s just that . . .”

“It’s just what?”

Jeno took a deep breath, reached into his pocket, and pressed a cool and circular object into Renjun’s hand.

His voice was quiet. “I saw what you had in your office.”

It seemed to take a moment for Renjun to register what exactly he was holding. When it happened, he sat up quickly, alert and clutching the pendant. “Jeno.”

His eyes were wide. They stared at each other.

“Jeno, I—” he began. Stopped. Restarted. “I know it looks bad, but I promise those drawings—they’ve been—” Stop. Restart. “I’ve been painting them for so long, since I knew you, back then, I . . . .” Stop. “I showed each one to you when I made them, but after they took me I tried to redo them all—I didn’t want to put the faces, was afraid of messing it up—did I mess us up? I messed us up—”

“You’re stammering,” Jeno observed.

Renjun didn’t even hear him. “Oh God. When did you find out? Today? Today. Yeah, it must have been today. Jeno you can’t leave me please you can’t—”

“Hold on. Hold on, look at me,” he said. “Look me in the eye, Huang Renjun. I am not going to leave you.”

“You won’t,” Renjun breathed. “Right. You’re not going to . . . to do that.”

“I’m not going to do that. So please, just breathe a little.”

Jeno spared a moment to wish that he had planned out this conversation a little better, as if he hadn’t rehearsed it in his head a thousand times, but a moment of regret was all he gave himself, because he couldn’t afford to spend time in his own head when Renjun was sitting here right in front of him, looking vulnerable and small and scared.

“Are you breathing?” Jeno checked.

“I am,” Renjun choked.

“No you’re not.”

“I  _ probably _ am. When did you . . . find out? About . . .the . . . the—”

“A couple days ago.”

“A couple days . . . ago?”

“That’s right.”

“You slept with me even though you knew?”

Jeno tilted his head to the side. “Yeah.”

Renjun slumped at that, looking all sorts of thoughtful, as if he were going over every single recent interaction of theirs in a new light.

Jeno hesitated. “Do you maybe regret it?”

“No, no. I don’t regret a thing. I loved doing that with you. It was—I loved it.”

Jeno cracked a smile. “Yeah, same.”

“I’m just saying, I didn’t know you knew . . . .” Renjun trailed off. His breath hitched. “Hold on. Wait, actually—during the jailbreak, at Taeyong’s, when you came in to save me, you said the same thing as on that day—you said—”

“‘I’m going to rescue you now, okay? _ ’”  _ Jeno quoted. “Yeah. It wasn’t a coincidence.”

“So you really do remember,” whispered Renjun in wonder.

“Of course I do. All the flashbacks and things I have are about you,” Jeno said. “You know that, don’t you? The nightmare and the paintings I saw in your office . . . they all helped me remember. I guess it was only a matter of time until the amnesia wore off.”

Renjun bit his bottom lip. Without thought, Jeno reached up and used his thumb and forefinger to gently tug it out from between his teeth. 

“What do I even say?” Renjun breathed out. 

Jeno wasn’t sure either, so he settled for leaning in and kissing Renjun softly. He was glad to find there was no hesitance in the way Renjun returned the action, in the purse of Renjun’s soft lips and the comforting, familiar way that his mouth moved on his.

When they pulled back, Renjun looked a little less tense, but his eyes were still full of conflict.

“Sometimes . . . sometimes I have a hard time reconciling your past self with you,” he confessed. “You two are the same person but—but not really, you know? People change. Back then, you were like, really cheerful and carefree, and don’t get me wrong, you’re still cheerful. But things are different. Losing Mark . . .”

“And losing you,” Jeno reminded him.

“And me, yes,” Renjun said. “You lost me but the amnesia made it so you didn’t even know I’d ever been there in the first place. So . . . did you really lose anything?”

Jeno gaped. “Of  _ course _ I did. You were my best friend. And don’t even think about Jaemin as your replacement—because yes, he’s my best friend too, but not in that way.”

“What way?” Renjun said.

Unexpectedly, Jeno felt his cheeks warm. He shifted around on the bed. “Don’t . . . don’t act dumb.”

“No, I’m serious.”

“You knew,” Jeno shot back. “We both did. We were both madly in love with each other.”

Renun’s voice was gentle. “Can children really even know what love is? We were so young.”

“Yes, but—well, fine, say what you want, but I know what I felt. I remember everything, from the times you picked me up off the court when I fell asleep on the bench after practice, to the times we shared yogurt snacks and copied each others’ homework, to the times we built pillow forts in my bedroom, and even the times we went to your parents’ house and stuffed our faces with dumplings and listened to the wind chimes and sewed our initials into matching sweatbands. I remember.”

Renjun reached forward to lay his hand on top of his. “I do, too.”

Jeno continued. “There are good memories, but I remember bad ones, also. We cried in a school bathroom, one day. Once, I had a flashback of it. There were two pairs of feet in the same stall.”

“Hmph. Well, for the record, it was you who was crying.”

“You remember it?”

“Of course. You were upset because the teacher forgot to put my birthday up on the birthday board. Quite an unimportant thing to be upset about, in my opinion, but it seemed to bother you a lot.”

Jeno’s mind swirled, trying to put together the pieces. He vaguely remembered a board of star-shaped cardstock tacked to a bulletin. “And you weren’t bothered?”

“What bothered me more was you crying.” The corner of Renjun’s lips lifted up. “Hey, maybe I was in love with you after all.”

Jeno huffed. “See?”

“Okay, okay.”

Renjun clicked open his pendant to peer at the photo inside. Sensing that a hug was needed, Jeno snuggled closer to him so he could wrap his arms around Renjun’s middle from behind. He hooked his chin over his shoulder.

“We were so cute,” he mused.

Renjun humed and settled backward into him. Together they studied the pendant photo, with chocolate-haired Jeno grinning crescents at the camera and Renjun sporting a Moomin T-shirt. 

“Hey, Jen. I’m glad you remember my parents,” Renjun said eventually. “It’s . . . yeah. I’m really really glad about that. Because, you know, all this time it’s felt like I was the only one who ever cherished them. You had been my only friend, and they had been my only parents, and my world had been so small. I got everything ripped away and then I didn’t even have anyone to grieve with me.”

Jeno kneaded one of his knuckles in comforting circles on Renjun’s stomach. “I’m sorry about your parents,” he said quietly.

Renjun inhaled a shaky breath. “Yeah. Me, too.”

“What exactly happened that day?”

Renjun shrugged. It was a simple, tired gesture. “We went to the park, like any other Sunday. We always hung out on Sundays. Then we went to my house, I opened the door, I saw my parents gutted and lying all over the floor with strange men kneeling over them, and before you could see them or they could see you I turned and grabbed your hand and ran.”

It seemed like he wasn’t going to say more, but Jeno wanted to hear it. He needed to. He made a noise of encouragement.

Renjun leaned the back of his head against Jeno’s shoulder, his soft hair tickling Jeno’s ear. “We ran back to the park. The men chased us. We should have called the police, but we didn’t. I guess we forgot? Or were too busy trying to get away? In the end . . . in the end, well. You know.”

“I want to make sure what I remember is the truth,” Jeno said firmly. “If it’s too hard for you to talk about, we can stop, but otherwise—please keep going.”

“Well, in the end, we hid. I gave myself up.”

His tone was off-handed, but Jeno knew it couldn’t have been easy to say that. He laced his fingers with Renjun’s, the same way he’d done on that day.

They were both quiet for a long time in the darkness of the bedroom, sorting through their memories. It was a lot to think about. It could be dangerous to dwell on, but together like this, discussing it openly and honestly, it was a little safer. A little easier.

“Junnie. When we first met, did you remember who I was?” Jeno asked.

“I did. I had my suspicions, at least. The name Jeno isn’t very common.”

“Didn’t you find it hella hard to act like we were strangers? You knew Mark and Chenle as well. Weren’t you upset when I told you about how Mark had been killed?”

“It was obvious you didn’t remember me, so I decided to take it in stride. And of course I was upset about Mark, but I couldn’t show it. That would be unprofessional, and out of character on my part. I could already barely believe the miracle of you reappearing back into my life just like that.”

Floored at Renjun’s ability to set aside his personal attachments under the sway of logic and reasoning, Jeno pressed his lips against his neck. 

Renjun got up entirely to turn himself around and straddle his lap. He hummed in satisfaction at having Jeno’s face so close to his.

They kissed for a long time. Eventually Jeno’s back started to ache, so they disengaged to tuck themselves underneath the blankets side by side, connected by how their tangled ankles. 

The weight of tomorrow hung over their heads, but at least the present was warm and lovely. Jeno wanted to preserve this moment in time. Maybe that was why Renjun had created so many paintings of their shared childhood—because he had wanted a way to cherish those memories, to express and ease the loneliness he felt.

“Can I snuggle with you now?”

“Sure,” Renjun mumbled.

“I want to be the little spoon.”

“Okay.”

Getting into position was a little tricky, especially since Renjun’s body was anatomically much smaller than Jeno’s, but Jeno liked the snug and safe feeling of being cuddled in Renjun’s arms. Slowly but surely, he began to fall asleep.

“You were right,” Jeno heard himself murmur.

Renjun let out a lazy hum. “More specific, baby.”

Even with him in this cozy, sleepy state, the nickname sent Jeno’s heart in a tizzy. “You were right. In that we’ve both changed a lot, since back then. I wish I could say something cheesy, like ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way,’ but hmm. I don’t really think that applies here.”

Renjun chuckled.

“But you know what?” Jeno said. “I think we’re just fine, the way we are now. We found each other again.”

“I wouldn’t call me becoming a mafia lord and you being afflicted by PTSD  _ just fine _ , Jeno.”

“But we found each other.”

Renjun’s smile was audible. “That, we did, you big mushy softie.”

###

The next morning Renjun was startled awake by a massive crashing noise that came from outside the window.

His eyes shot open and he swung his legs off the bed and grabbed the phone by his nightstand. It was already ringing. 

“Huang.” Yoonoh’s voice was grave when he picked up. “It’s time.”

Holding the phone to his ear, Renjun glanced back at Jeno. He was already sitting up, wide-awake. 

“The indigo is so thick, I can barely breathe. Please, Huang. Make it stop. We need to end this.”

Yoonoh was nearly begging. Renjun had never heard him like this before—in a mix of dread and apprehension, he got up to peer out his bedroom window and he cursed underneath his breath. From this distance and this elevation, the most populated part of the contempire could be seen swarming with blue. Faraway tiny shapes blended together in a frenzy. One of the skyscrapers had already fallen, which explained the crashing noise Renjun had heard.

“We are prepared for this,” Renjun said into the phone, reassuring himself more than anything.

Shortly after, he hung up, then turned to face Jeno, who was already up and pulling on his work clothes. 

The final battle was about to begin.

###

By the time they made it downstairs, all of the employees were ready and Taeyong’s squadrons had already arrived. They milled about in the lobby, practically an army in their own right, each person dressed head-to-toe with combat attire with weapons tucked into every pocket. Even though it was still early morning, no one looked less than alert. The room was tense in the worst possible way as they grimly fastened their shoe laces and helped each other strap color guns to their hips, backs, and forearms.

Renjun felt a peculiar sensation in his throat at the sight of it all. Taeyong, standing near the stair banister with Yoonoh, looked up and gave him a curt nod.

After Renjun called for everyone’s attention, he went over the battle plan with them. Offensive tactics like the color guns, grenades, and a variety of maiming weapons were to be used against the deadmen of Operation Phoenix, while strict defense was to be used against the lemmings to avoid unnecessary casualties. The majority of the troops were tasked to immobilize the deadman hordes, while those who could drive race cars or jets would make the most of their talents. Renjun and Jeno would go after the generals heading the operations, and Taeyong and Yoonoh would man the weapon artillery for the final bloodblue blast.

At the end of his speech, Renjun’s eyes searched through the crowd to find his staff. His three men as well as Jisung and the three remaining sisters were gathered together in solidarity, with Chenle, Mark, and Donghyuck nearby. Mark had made the decision to join them for the fight, if for nothing else than to keep an eye on Donghyuck and make sure he didn’t get killed. Donghyuck was decked out in his assassin uniform and dressed for battle, with several women around him and dressed in the same camouflage-patterned clothing. 

Renjun jolted. These were the five greatest assassins of the guild. Here to protect the contempire. 

Fleetingly, Renjun felt that he ought to say something inspirational, to address the crowd and boost their spirits before battle. But that was the stuff of holo-movies. In reality no one wanted to hear someone prattle on about the virtues of honor and glory when they were keyed-up and restless for action. They all knew they were doing something important here. If not good, it was at least important, and they were all prepared for the worst.

“All right. Let’s go,” Taeyong said, a fierce look on his face. “Gotta go get em.”

###

The city was in chaos.

Most of the mess was happening in the center of town, where civilians were screaming and running. Everywhere you looked, there were deadmen, climbing up onto terraces, knocking down trees, clinging to windows, and chewing through walls. Literally, chewing through them, their misshapen teeth far too big for their jaws working furiously through the concrete. They were trying to demolish the buildings, topple the contempire.

Well, some of them were. There were just as many deadmen  _ not _ at work as there were at work. Countless zombies wandered about, chasing people or eating through the ground or just being clumsy and destructive with no specific aim or reason. It wasn’t these deadmen that Jeno had to worry about. It was the lemmings.

The lemmings were lithe and agile, ducking into each and every building to hunt down people still hiding. They flushed them out like rats and emerged dragging people, unconscious or very much conscious and screaming, out onto the street. Already a sizeable amount of civilians had been herded into the center square, where they were being corralled by lemmings. 

Taeyong and Renjun’s troops worked swiftly through the chaos like vigilantes in black. They were vastly outnumbered. Still, as he hurried through the crowd, Jeno could hear the peal of gunshots, could glimpse deadmen falling to the ground not two feet away from him.

“Watch out!” Renjun seized his elbow and dragged him away just in time as a lemming and Yeji, one of Taeyong’s soldiers, careened in their direction. They were engaged in hand-to-hand combat, Yeji’s face pulled in a focused grimace as she countered each of the lemming’s blows. Her gun glinted in her hand, but she made no move to fire it, instead using the butt of the weapon. She jammed hard against the lemming’s head and he sank to the ground.

One of Yeji’s comrades nearby helped load him into Yangyang’s race car. The teen was going around collecting fallen lemmings. 

Yeji wiped sweat off her brow and noticed Jeno staring at her. She made a motion at him, one that obviously symbolized,  _ hurry up _ .

Jeno swallowed, turned away—

His heart dropped. One of the nine sisters was standing in front of him, her eyes blanked and fixed ahead.

She disappeared into the crowd, along with the two struggling civilians she was lugging in her wake.

“Chaeyoung,” Jeno whispered. That was her name. There were so many people here, so many names, so many innocents who had families. 

Renjun tugged him along with a meaningful look. They couldn’t stick around helping out everyone here, they needed to get to the root of the issue.

“There,” Renjun yelled over the din, raising his hand and pointing. Far off the distance, the shape of a race car hovered a decent height above the ground to be visible above the chaos. On it were two figures, both dressed in coats. One of them turned and Jeno saw light glint off the many badges attached to his breast.

The generals.

Renjun pulled Jeno along, heading straight for them.

###

Hongseok was the one who headed Operation Phoenix. Hoetaek was the one who headed Operation Lemming, meaning he was the more dangerous of the two. 

Jeno fought his way through the crowd, dodging deadmen and kicking some out of the way with Renjun by his side. They reached the platform on which the two generals were standing, pristine and unaffected by the damage going on all around them. Hoetaek’s lips moved silently, presumably giving orders to his lemming legion.

Renjun whipped out holo-discs and Jeno surged up onto them. His fingertips strained to reach the platform, so far up above, and Renjun manually propelled the discs a little higher for Jeno to reach.

Once he’d made it, he pulled Renjun up too. The two generals hadn’t noticed them yet.

But their bodyguards certainly had. The squadron quickly surrounded Jeno and Renjun, pushing them toward the center of the platform and aiming guns at them.

“Hands in the air!”

_ I don’t think so _ , Jeno thought.

The thing was, the platform they were all standing on right now was nothing more than a glorified holo-disc. Just an enlarged one. Jeno had trained long and hard with holo-discs to understand how they worked.

He dug his heel into the platform’s surface. It responded immediately, buzzing under his foot, sensing that he knew how to utilize it unlike the clueless squadron who had obviously been hastily hired for this job under the assumption that if they knew how to fire a gun they’d be good enough.

They were not good enough.

Jeno was.

It was like tap dancing. Shuffle, shuffle, stomp. The universal codes that all holo-discs were programmed to respond to. As soon as he did it, the platform turned jelly-like, undulating in unsteady waves, and the yelping squadron scrambled to find purchase.

Renjun copied Jeno, altering the code just right to target the dozen different members of the squadron, and the platform heaved up and down violently. The squadron members were bucked off, one by one, and predictably by now the generals began to notice that their holo-platform was acting up.

Renjun let out a war cry, presumably to give himself confidence, as he charged forward and tackled Hoetaek in a flying leap. The two of them sailed through the air just like Renjun had practiced with Jeno just two days ago. They landed on the ground in a struggling heap—Renjun knew how to roll to absorb the impact, but Hoetaek just skidded several meters like a toy doll. Fitting.

He struggled to his feet to face off against Renjun. That left Hongseok for Jeno.

His gaze shifted back to the general, who was still there, unperturbed by the undulating rhythm of the holo-platform. He cocked an eyebrow at Jeno and held up his arms.  _ Come and get me _ , it implied.

This was the man Renjun had tried to kill that night at the gala. Jeno wondered if Hongseok remembered.

“Once, you saved me from being assassinated,” Hongseok said, loud enough to be heard. Okay, so he did remember. “You’re a softie. You won’t hurt me.”

Somehow, being called a softie by anyone except Renjun bothered him. Bothered him  _ bad. _

He didn’t want to get his hands dirty here. Quickly he slid his foot across the holo-platform in a command, but when the would-be attack didn’t happen, Hongseok just smirked and gave a pointed look down at where his own ankles were crossed with the heel of one foot and the ball of another placed firmly on the platform.

The null command. Jeno stared in shock.

“You’re forgetting that I was the one who engineered hover technology! You can’t beat me at my own game.”

_ Well, well, just watch me _ , Jeno thought.

He shifted his feet into the null position as well. Hongseok laughed at his copycat attempt and proceeded to land several complication shuffle-stomps on the platform, causing sections of it to spasm around where Jeno was standing. He was thrown to the side, staggering to keep his balance, and found himself at the edge before the floor flung him back the other way.

He was playing with him. Jeno gritted his teeth.

“This is the great thing about hover technology!” Hongseok said. “I can commandeer it with my feet, so that my hands are free.”

With that, he took a gun out of his pocket.

Jeno’s eyes flared. He dove out of the way, barely avoiding being shot, and from there ensued an intense session of Hongseok just lazily firing at him while Jeno scrambled to stay alive. It almost looked like the general was dancing, his feet skidding lightly back and forth with his smile never leaving his face.

“I saved your ass once!” Jeno shouted.

“Yes, I am very grateful.” Hongseok shot again.

Jeno twisted out of the way, landing back on the platform with his legs in an awkward position. His ankle began to ache. “You don’t seem very grateful!”

“Look around, dimwit. Look at the glory I’m creating. Which one between the two of us deserves to be alive, hmm?”

All around them, deadmen were ravaging the city. Jeno shook his head, bangs sweaty. “I don’t get it. I thought you were just trying to get rid of the crime syndicates, not destroy the entire contempire itself?”

Hongseok yawned as he pushed his heel against the platform, causing Jeno to lurch off-balance once more. “Ah, yes. But you see, there needs to be a real public scare to get people to stay away from crime for good. Who knows? Any one of those people there” —he gestured at the crowd of innocent civilians being rounded up by lemmings— “has the potential to become a crime lord.”

“This is terrorism!”

“Like the mafia doesn’t financially terrorize the contempire anyway!”

“This is different,” Jeno panted. 

“You folk romantizice your jobs way too fucking much.” Hongseok’s brows drew together. “You realize you’re just petty criminals, right? A street rat in a tuxedo is no different than one in rags. You’re not worth the air you breathe.”

At that, Jeno huffed out a laugh. “Rude,” he managed to make out.

He dodged one final bullet, then landed once more in the awkward leg position. Heel of one foot, ball of the other, ankles crossed.

Hongseok paused. Lowered his gun. Jeno saw it come together in his head.

A null. Ten of them, to be exact.

In the past few minutes, when Jeno had seemingly been skating about trying to save his own neck, he’d actually been incorporating the nulls in one by one.

Ten of them was the universal hover code for shut-down. Jeno hadn’t driven a ratty old hover-car for months on end before meeting Renjun for nothing. General Hongseok may have created hover technology, but it was the ordinary people who used it, ordinary people who relied on it. It was the difference between book smart and street smart.

The hovering platform shut down immediately, plummeting to the ground easily several meters below. Jeno felt his teeth rattle at the impact, and by the time he had regained his bearings, Hongseok had already recovered and was aiming his gun at him.

“Nice trick. But you have nowhere to run.”

At that moment, Renjun crept up from behind and slammed his elbow into the back of Hongseok’s head. 

Jeno fought the urge to stick out his tongue at the shock on Hongseok’s face. The general’s eyelids fluttered as his eyes rolled up in his head and he crumpled to the ground, out for the count. 

“Thanks, baby,” he said as Renjun came over to help him up.

“We can’t celebrate yet.” Renjun jerked his chin over at where General Hoetaek was currently located. 

What Jeno saw there nearly gave him a heart attack.

###

All around Hoetaek swarmed deadmen, their bodies merging and clamping together in rigid formations. The scrape of skin on skin was audible, flakes of dead cells littering the ground as the zombies jammed their limbs up against each other to form a tightly interlocked web of flesh. After a couple moments, it became obvious that they were forming a collective shape—and it was a chair.

A throne.

Hoetaek stepped on the deadmen’s faces as he ascended onto his seat, settling in with a supremely satisfied look. Jeno had been wrong when he’d thought that Hoetaek had only the lemmings under his mind control—apparently it extended to the Phoenix deadmen, too.

Jeno’s voice was a hoarse shout. “Why? Why are you doing this?”

“To cleanse the world!” General Hoetaek yelled back.

“Cleanse it my ass,” Renjun muttered, eyeing the absurd sight that the general made, sitting atop his misshapen throne of sickly-skinned blue limbs that snaked together in an ever-shifting seat.

“Renjun, we need to buy time,” Jeno whispered to him.

“I  _ know _ that. Let’s get him to talk about his motivations. Every villain loves that.”

“Okay.” Jeno cleared his throat and raised his voice to be heard by the general. “I mean, sure, you want to cleanse the world, but. Like,  _ why _ ?”

“Oh, yes, love, very eloquent,” Renjun murmured. Jeno shot him a look even though he knew he couldn’t help it. Renjun only got snarky like this when he was nervous.

Hoetaek peered at them. “You want my villain origin story? Fine, I’ll give you my villain origin story.” He held on to the armrests—literal armrests, made of arms—and raised his chin. “Three decades ago,” he began, speaking over the incessant snarling of his feral throne, “three decades ago, crime was bad, but I knew it would get worse. And it has. Organized crime has grown out of control, become more violent and rampant and accepted. That is not normal. I am here to eradicate it. After cleansing Los Angeles, I will move onto the rest of the world—I am building a utopia, and  _ you _ are standing in my way.”

Jeno elbowed Renjun, urging him to respond to that.

“Believe me when I say that I understand how bad crime has been in the past few years,” Renjun spoke up, raising his voice to be heard. “I myself was a victim to it! My parents were killed by human traffickers. But this—this, what you’re doing, is not the way to go about getting rid of crime. Deadmen? Clandestine operations? Kidnapping infants and turning them into your personal zombie toys?”

As if on cue, the headrest of Hoetaek’s chair reared up to expose the face of a painfully young child, their gunky eyes glassed over and their decaying mouth pulled back in a grimace. A moment later, their face disappeared back into the writhing mess of limbs.

Renjun’s voice broke.

He was staring at where the child’s face had been.

Jeno knew that feeling, all too well.

The sensation of being sucked back in time. 

That awful weight of empathy when you were faced with something that you could have become under different circumstances.

Fate was funny like that.

Jeno slipped his hand in Renjun’s, squeezed, and spoke for the both of them.

“Lee Hoetaek,” he said. “You’re a criminal, as bad as the rest of us.”

One of the deadmen in the throne let out an unearthly shriek. The general’s chair bucked, as if trying to rid itself of the man controlling it. A hand crawled out and ripped the general’s hair from its topknot, sending it tumbling down in ragged waves. Hoetaek cursed and tried to disengage from the chair, to no avail.

Now, he just looked like a madman.

With his free hand, Jeno reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his color gun. It was the one Yoonoh had given him earlier. Slowly, he aimed it at the general.

“I think you need to reevaluate before you can claim you stand for a utopia.”

At the sight of the gun, Hoetaek began thrashing harder in an effort to escape. But his throne had become a prison. The deadmen were gripping tight to him, refusing to let go.  _ If we go, you go too. _

Jeno squeezed the trigger.

His aim was flawless. The golden-orange bullet bubbles solidified midair and sank square into Hoetaek’s chest, causing the general to gasp and throw his head back. The gold travelled through Hoetaek’s body at a frightening pace, enveloping him in a cocoon almost immediately.

The lemmings, no longer under his mind control, all ceased fighting at once. All around the contempire, the city went quiet.

The snarling deadmen threw Hoetaek to the ground and scattered. Jeno lowered his gun to watch them run. Beside him, Renjun raised his hand to his ear’s mic headset.

“Jung. Do it,” he said. “Let them be at peace.”

At his word, the faraway cannons and grenades fired up with the great noise of a thousand sets of ammunition coming to life at once. Yoonoh and Taeyong had been lying in wait, waiting for Renjun to give the signal.

The first of the missiles streaked through the air in a brilliant shade of bloodblue, shedding its color through the sky like a hauntingly beautiful chalk arc, and slammed into the ground. After that, the missiles started coming in droves, crashing into sides of buildings, toppling skyscrapers and pedestrian shops in a deafening cacophony. Jets driven by Taeyong’s male squadrons soared from their stations; the bellies of the airborne vehicles opened up to each reveal a set of spherical color bombs filled to the brim with again the distinctive royal glare of bloodblue.

One by one, the airplanes dropped their cargo, and the bombs fell through the air in graceful arcs leaking smoke.

Upon impact, the bombs exploded, releasing terrifically dense clouds of bloodblue that seeped through the air, permeating the streets all around.

Jeno was frozen, staring at the chaos all around. It was beautiful.

He barely registered Renjun whirling to him. A nearby skyscraper moaned. That was the only warning they had before it toppled through the air and landed on its side in a crush of rubble and dust. The impact knocked Jeno to his knees—he and Renjun went down together.

Everything was crumbling around them.

The two boys held each other.

###

Amid the chaos, Jeno squinted his eyes open to peer over Renjun’s shoulder. A thick, nearly solid veil of bloodblue mist stretched for miles in every direction. The cacophony of buildings crumbling, windows breaking, and deadmen screaming built louder and louder into a crescendo.

All of it melted into a hurricane of white noise until the only thing he could hear was Renjun’s heartbeat. 

Jeno pulled him closer. He shut his eyes.

###

When the smoke cleared, they stayed there for a while, neither willing to let the other go. As the noise died down, Jeno could hear Renjun’s ragged breaths, feel them hot against his ear.

“Up,” Jeno said, more to himself than anyone in particular. He stood and helped pull Renjun to his feet too.

They surveyed the wreckage around them.

The contempire was in ruins. Buildings everywhere were upturned, power lines had been ripped up off the ground, and the cement of the ground itself was cracked and littered with glass, bricks, and heaps of rubble. Yoonoh hadn’t underestimated how the weaponized bloodblue could and would destroy anything in its path.

The bodies of deadmen were strewn about, all of them mercifully still. Their glassy eyes were half-shut. Their limbs were limp.

Finally, they were at peace.

The immobilized body of General Hoetaek lay prone on the ground, still wrapped in its protective layer of gold-orange. Every so often, the cocoon made small strained moments as if the man inside was trying to break free, but it was futile and he wouldn’t be going anywhere.

The silence in the clearing was ginger.

Jeno craned around to look for his friends. One by one, they emerged out of the debris, coughing and fanning the air in front of them. There was the nonet squadron, looking dazed. The four female officers of the Los Angeles Police Department. The five leaders of the assassin guild. The chauffeur, Byeongkwan. And Taeyong’s men, slowly climbing out of their landed jets. Felix gave a small wave.

Jeno saw Chenle, who was slightly limping while being supported by Jisung. There was also Jaemin and Kevin, arm-in-arm. Despite looking slightly roughed up, they all seemed unharmed.

Renjun let out a sound that might have been a laugh. He turned to Jeno and pulled him in by his shirt and kissed him, hard.

“We did it, Jeno, we did it—” he whispered.

Jeno wrapped his arms around his small waist and lifted him up off the ground in a hug.

###

But before the two of them could really get into it, Donghyuck came up beside them and said, “wait, wait, wait.” Jeno was about to tell him off for ruining the moment, before he registered the tone of absolute panic in his voice. 

His heart dropped and he set Renjun down.

Donghyuck ran forward to scramble over the largest mountain of rubble, finding poor footholds in his haste and accidentally kicking several loose rocks away with his feet. His face was fraught with fear as he searched the debris with shaking hands.

“Not again,” he spoke to himself, over and over. “Not again. Where is he? Not again. This is not happening again. Where  _ is he _ ?”

Jeno’s throat dried up.

Quiet fell over the clearing as people turned away from their celebrations and fell silent to watch the assassin as he rooted helplessly through the wreckage.

But Mark was nowhere to be found.

###

Mark opened his eyes in darkness.

It was too much of a familiar feeling. He felt claustrophobia descend on him and he coughed and tried to sit up, but his head knocked against the hard rock above him. 

_ No _ . 

He stayed there in silent panic, his back flat against concrete.

He squeezed his eyes shut. The darkness was the same.

His body hurt so badly.

“Mark,” shouted someone.  _ His _ someone. “Mark.”

Mark opened his eyes. With a strength he didn’t know he had, he pushed away the heavy weight that loomed above him. A thin line of sunlight slanted through the gap and onto his face. Heart in his throat, he fought his way upward, kicking rocks away one by one and peeling the sky back toward him. He wasn’t trapped. He was alive. Right?

Right?

Sunlight attacked his eyes. Mark clambered out of the wreckage and stood up. His back popped; his left shoulder ached.

He was standing on top of an enormous heap of concrete, with a sizable crowd gathered around.

“Mark!”

Mark turned—

Donghyuck barrelled into him, a short stocky figure of warmth and dust and  _ Donghyuck _ . He nearly bowled them both over, chest heaving up and down.

“Hyuck,” Mark murmured, arms settling around the younger’s lower back. Donghyuck smelled like smoke, and rubble. “Am I dead?”

“No you’re not.” Donghyuck leaned back and grabbed him by the upper arms. His face was insistent. “You’re not fucking dead, Mark Lee, if you die I’m going to resurrect you and kill you all over again because you don’t get to leave me like that again. Do you hear me?”

“You’re so gorgeous when you’re concerned about me.”

“Oh no,” spoke Jaemin, from a spot at the bottom of the mountain of wreckage. “The bloodblue blast scrambled his brains. He’s loopy! Quick, someone call an ambulance—”

No one was listening.

Donghyuck’s fingers gripped Mark harder. “I’m . . . when I’m . . . gorgeous? Do you really think so?”

“Yeah, I think you’re gorgeous all the time,” Mark said plainly, and Donghyuck burst into tears.

He surged forward, cupped Mark’s face in his hands, and pressed his lips to his nose, chin, mouth, cheek, forehead. “I love you,” he choked between kisses, “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

In response, Mark turned his head ever so slightly so he could nudge his nose against the tattoo on Donghyuck’s wrist. The younger kept rambling.

“Marry me. Fucking marry me. Never even think about leaving me ever again. Do you hear me? I was so scared. I’m still scared. I’ll always be scared when it comes to you, Mark, I’m always gonna care about you, I want you in my life forever, please just never leave me again—”

Mark’s voice came out weak. “Hyuck.”

The assassin raised his head. His amber eyes were bright amid his tear-streaked face. “Yeah?”

“Always.” Mark coughed to the side, dispelling excess dust from his lungs, and turned back to him with a small smile. “Love. Always, right? I mean. You. Us? This . . . ? This. This is always.”

He was vaguely aware that what he was saying made no sense, but then again, he and Donghyuck had always been able to read each other without much guidance.

Donghyuck choked out an  _ okay _ and then hugged him hard and long.

Mark rested his chin atop Donghyuck’s head as best he could, wanting to make sure the younger felt as safe as he could in his arms. Someone in the distance whooped—after that, the sound of cheers and applause built like a storm, and Mark looked over the top of Donghyuck’s head to see that everyone in the clearing was clapping for them, the two lovers who had been through so much yet were still standing today.

Mark’s wide eyes found Jeno’s, who was standing arm-in-arm with Renjun. Jeno offered his older brother a wide grin.

Mark smiled back, then shut his eyes and hugged Donghyuck back harder. His left shoulder still ached, and he was pretty sure he’d broken one or two his toes, but that was fine. He’d get that fixed later.

Right now, everything was going to be okay.

###

“ _ Thankfully there were no casualties in last week’s great Los Angeles earthquake. The contempire has been sitting on major fault lines and building up tension for the past couple centuries. Earthquakes are an unfortunate yet inevitable cost of living in that location, wouldn’t you say?” _

The news anchor bobbed her head in agreement. “ _ Yes, of course. The government has assured us that the earthquake relief force has been dispatched and such an event is not likely to occur again.” _

“ _ Some citizens of the contempire are trying to spread conspiracy theories that it was not a natural disaster but in fact a zombie uprising.”  _ Her partner laughed in a deep bass voice. “ _ Would you get a load of that? Now, onto the weather.” _

###

Afterwards, Taeyong and Renjun met one last time to end the alliance and to thank each other. “A job well done,” the boss said, shaking Renjun’s hand.

Renjun cast a pointed glance out the window of Taeyong’s office to see the wreckage that was the rest of the city. He raised an eyebrow. “I feel like the disaster here will take a long time to clean up.”

“Sure, but that’s the way it works. Humanity will bounce back. We know how to rebuild.”

Renjun gazed for a while out the window, watching an enormous crane as well as several bulldozers rumble their way down the concrete. Taeyong was right. Recuperation would take a while, but humans were the proverbial cockroaches of the universe. Eventually, someday, things would go back to normal.

Yoonoh piped up. “I archived the color, the bloodblue one. I’m formally recalling all products of the shade. The world isn’t ready for a weapon of that kind of mass destruction.”

Renjun turned to study him. “Well, I don’t know. I feel like you’d be excited about all the new heights you’ve unlocked. With your abilities, you could be powerful—rule the world, become a dictator . . .” 

“I don’t want to rule the world,” Yoonoh said. 

Exactly what Renjun thought he’d say. 

Once, Renjun might have thirsted for the sort of glory that being an international dictator would offer, but—he wasn’t like that anymore. 

He left the office soon after, looking forward to going home. Jeno was waiting for him there.

###

“Cliche,” Chenle yawned.

Jisung made an offended squawk. “Excuse me? You’re calling a sprained ankle cliche?”

The scene here in the infirmary with Jisung was familiar, just like the memory Chenle had of last summer when he’d been shot by serial killers and woken up to Jisung beside him. That felt ages ago.

He hoisted his leg up onto the stack of pillows and nodded resolutely. “Yes. I mean, no. I mean, the cliche part is that you’re fussing over me like this. Don’t you think there’s already enough hurt-and-comfort to go around? We’re not that basic.”

“If me caring about you is basic, then I’m the most basic bitch this planet has ever seen.”

Kunhang had said Chenle’s ankle injury was nothing to worry about so long as he didn’t put weight on it. Jisung did not agree with this. He had gone into worried chicken mode and was being incredibly motherly. Even more motherly than the rest of the proverbial mothers Chenle owned: namely, Jaemin, Donghyuck, Jeno, and Mark. Chenle was not a chick magnet—Chenle was a mother hen magnet for people who smothered him with so much love that he couldn’t breathe. He quite liked it.

Jisung sighed. “At least school is closed next week for repairs,” he said, presumably to cheer himself up. “One great thing about a zombie apocalypse, huh? School demolished. No can do.”

Chenle nodded. “Do you think they’ll still have prom?”

“We’re not even allowed to go prom, we’re a grade too young,” Jisung said.

“We’ll get Huang to forge us a pair of fake IDs,” Chenle suggested.

Jisung leveled him with a look. “You are so shameless. Exploiting my family like that.”

“Family, eh?” Chenle nudged him. “Things are finally smoothing over with Huang?”

A grin.. “He lets me call him Renjun now.”

“That’s great! Next, you guys will become chums and maybe you’ll even be able to call him Junnie or something really cute and annoying—”

“Oh, no, no. I prefer my limbs intact, Lele.”

Fair enough. Everyone knew only Jeno could call the boss nicknames, and although Renjun acted like he hated it, he wasn’t as slick as he thought he was. Once, Jeno let slip that Renjun was incredibly clingy and cute when they were alone together, which Chenle had a hard time believing, but hey if anyone knew Renjun it was Jeno.

“Come here,” Chenle said, opening his arms.

Jisung perked up at that. Quickly he climbed off his seat and crawled into the hospital bed beside him, neither of them even caring that Jisung was still wearing his shoes or that Chenle’s skin was still slightly grimy.

“Mhgmgh tired.” Jisung rested his head on Chenle’s shoulder. “Tired, emotionally. Tired of living this hurt-and-comfort cliche. Hope you don’t get hurt anymore after this. You have to be safe okay? Let’s just have the comfort part. No hurt. Okay?”

Chenle’s heart swelled. He wanted to smother him with so much love. 

When he didn’t respond fast enough, Jisung warned in a shaky voice, “I’m gonna cry if you don’t say okay!”

His tears were rarer than anything, and Chenle never wanted to see them happen. Not even for him. He wrapped Jisung up in his arms and kissed the top of his head again and again, whispering  _ okay, okay, it’s okay _ . 

Comfort, no hurt. So what if it was cliche? He liked it better that way.

###

The Los Angeles Police Department arrived at Renjun’s estate to thank him for his civic duty. Jennie Kim, the head cop, announced that they were done collecting the deadmen bodies and were now preparing to return them to their rightful graves.

“What about your squadron? Are the lemmings back to normal?” she asked.

Renjun nodded. From what he had gathered, all the lemmings had been restored back to their normal states, with no recollection of anything that had happened. His female squadron was back on their feet and grateful to him for freeing them from the mental clutches of the federal government, which, by the way, was very understanding about the whole situation. To atone for the wrongdoings of their LA sector officials, they were sure to assure the public that the deadman uprising had in fact just been an earthquake, and it would not happen again in the future. That was all Renjun needed to understand that the government wouldn’t be trying anything again anytime soon.

Jennie shared a solemn nod with Renjun. Then her eyes slipped over his shoulder, where Jeno could be seen approaching, and she broke out into a wide grin.

“Fancy seeing you again, lieutenant,” she said. “Last time we met you were just a secretary.”

Jeno shook her hand. “Time flies, doesn’t it?” he said.

He retreated back to Renjun’s side, and Jennie’s gaze flickered to how the two males were standing just a little too close together to be considered platonic. Her eyes sparkled.

“So you finally went and caught the boy, Huang! Good for you.”

Jeno laughed. “Oh, no, officer, I think I’m the one who caught him.”

The officer lifted up her hand and wiggled it to show the slim gold band resting across her fourth finger. “My wife and I just celebrated our marriage anniversary,” she said proudly. “The both of us are so busy with our jobs, but we always manage to save some time for each other. Love triumphs in the end, doesn’t it? Welcome to the club.”

After they said their goodbyes and Jennie was walking away to get back into her black-and-pink painted car, Renjun let out a long breath and turned to Jeno.

“Sorry about that, love, I don’t know if you were okay with that.”

“Okay with what?” Jeno kissed his cheek. “About being in the proverbial club of idiots in love? I am plenty okay with that.”

“Ha, speak for yourself. I won’t be affiliated with any sort of club so long as it’s got idiots in it.”

Jeno hummed. “Speaking of idiots, have you seen Donghyuck and Mark lately? They’ve been so funny to watch, you know, being all awkward around each other ever since Donghyuck proposed to him in front of the entire contempire.”

“Do you think he really meant it?”

“The proposal? Oh yeah, he meant it,” Jeno said, sounding certain.

“Guess we’ll soon have a wedding in order,” Renjun mused.

When Jeno was silent, Renjun looked up at him and noticed he had a thoughtful, shy look on his face.

“What is it?” Then Renjun startled. “Wait, I didn’t mean—I meant Donghyuck and Mark, not—not—”

Jeno kissed him to shut him up, then leaned their foreheads together. “I know what you meant,” he whispered with a soft laugh. “Just . . . it’s so nice, thinking that all of us can finally settle down now.”

Well, well, well. A long time ago, Renjun might have wrinkled his nose at the thought of settling down, the thought of being complacent with life alongside the resignation of his hopes and dreams. But with Jeno, he wasn’t giving up any dreams. Because it was him. He was Renjun’s dream.

“Hmm,” Renjun murmured. “This . . . you’re not what I expected.”

“Me?”

“You. This.” Renjun waved his arms, at the bright sun above, the rose garden all around, the warm happiness inside him, and the beautiful boy in front of him. “It’s not what I expected.”

“Well. I hope that’s a good thing.”

Renjun smiled.

“It is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay tuned for the epilogue. It will be posted eventually.
> 
> (..yes i rly just had u read a 19k finale without telling u there was gonna be an epilogue. lol sorry dont be mad at me)
> 
> Thank you, everyone!
> 
> ~ Yerin 081320


	18. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *deep breath* okAAAYY EVERYONE HI
> 
> yes yes. here i present to you the epilogue. finally. thank you to everyone who has been waiting for the past 3 months for me to get my shit together, i appreciate it v muchly <333

It was a slow night. Sehun hummed under their breath, listening to the distant wafting of music coming from somewhere outdoors. The bar itself wasn’t playing any music at the moment—they were coming up on their electricity bill and needed to play it safe. It wasn’t like any of the customers here at the moment would mind, anyway. They were regulars. They knew the bar wasn’t the prettiest place.

Sehun polished a pseudo glass tankard absently. Behind them, their coworker yawned, having just returned from serving a few customers.

“Long day, huh?” Sehun said, without turning around.

“Yeah. I’ve got an 8 am lecture tomorrow, too. It’s gonna be hell.”

“Yeah? Maybe you should head home, then. I’ll clean up here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, Seonghwa. Go ahead.”

He was a few years younger than Sehun, and they felt a need to look after him. They were pretty sure his parents weren’t doing jack shit to keep their kid from having to work the graveyard shift at a 24-hour bar to pay for his university tuition. Some people weren’t meant to be parents, Sehun knew.

Seonghwa untied his apron and packed up his stuff to leave. “Sleep well,” Sehun offered, raising their cup in salute. Seonghwa waved good-bye and pushed out the door, his coat tails swinging as he left.

One by one, the customers trickled away, each of them needing to get to sleep so they could go to work tomorrow at whatever place for whatever reason. Now, near 3 am, in the comfortable quiet of the empty room, Sehun swished their cup absently, humming some more.

The doorbell jingled. In came two guys, filling the silence with all their bustle. They gasped and cursed, shaking snow out of their clothes and rubbing their stiff hands together. Sehun raised an eyebrow. Usually tourists knew better than to waltz into Louisiana in December with nothing more than glorified sundresses, but who was Sehun to judge fashion?

“I think I have snow in my shoe,” said one of the strangers breathlessly—he was slightly shorter in stature than the other. “Mark, this is horrible.”

“You told me your boots were impenetrable,” said the other in a dry voice.

“I think Irene lied. These are frauds. I should demand a pay raise in compensation. Fourteen years of faithful service to the guild and this is what I get? Frostbite, possible toe amputations—!”

The other, Mark, laughed. The short one pouted.

“What can I get you guys?” called Sehun, feeling almost bad for interrupting. Watching these two interact was interesting. 

Mark turned and his gaze flickered down to Sehun’s name tag. His entire demeanor changed, face growing serious, eyes widening.

“Just some water, please,” he said.

While Sehun prepared their drinks, the two strangers came over to settle down at the bar counter, still bickering albeit in lower voices.

“You would care more if it was _your_ feet, Mr. Invincible.”

“Hyuck. What did we say about dropping that nickname?”

“Hmph. Fine. Mr. _Lee_ , then.”

“No, you’re the Mr. Lee,” said Mark, nudging his shoulder.

“We’re both Mr. Lee.”

Sehun glanced over his shoulder and his eye caught the glint of two slim plym-colored bands sitting on each of their ring fingers. Plym was the universal color of promise rings. God, kids these days planned on marrying young, didn’t they.

They passed the cups over the countertop. “Enjoy. Let me know if I can get you anything else.”

“Just a second,” said Mark, before Sehun could turn away. “It’s good to see you again. Do you remember me?”

“Mm . . . When did we meet, again?” Sehun asked.

“A while ago. Maybe a year back? Something like that. If you don’t remember, it’s okay. I just wanted to drop by and say thank you. You helped me a lot once.”

“In what way?” Sehun said.

“You gave me your tip money. Thirty-two dollars. It kinda saved my life.”

They had no idea what he was talking about, but they nodded anyway. “Ah . . . Well, you’re very welcome, then.”

Throughout this whole exchange, the other stranger, Hyuck, had been sitting there quietly, eyes on Sehun. His gaze was unsettling. He had the look of someone capable of great danger, maybe even violence—but somehow, there was something peculiar in those amber eyes. Approval? Appraisement? Something. It was something. 

Sehun turned away and let out a long breath. It wasn’t every day they served an assassin who worked under Bae Irene, much less gained said assassin’s good _favor_. Sehun would have to add it to their list of small achievements.

When Sehun came back, the two men were gone. Their two empty glasses sat side by side on the countertop, next to a startlingly large black case.

Sehun grabbed it by its handle and hurried out the door, ready to shout and call the customers back and let them know they’d forgotten something—but they skidded to a stop in the doorway. The surrounding street was empty and silent, no traces of a car or even a holo-taxi. There were only pale flakes of snow, drifting peacefully from the sky. 

Tentatively Sehun unbuckled the clasp for the case. They lifted the lid.

And then they almost dropped it. 

Sehun looked back up. “Hey!” they shouted. “Hey!” What had been their names again? “Mark! Hyuck! Come back, you forgot your—your—”

Sehun shut their mouth and looked back down at the fat, crisp stacks of cash, lined up in orderly rows with the face of the current President of the United States smiling up at them. Oh my lord. How much money was this? 

Dazed, they went back inside to count the bills. Once they’d checked each of the bills for signs of counterfeit and found absolutely none, they leaned back in their chair and whistled in wonder. Thirty thousand dollars. Thirty- _two_ thousand dollars, to be exact. 

Taped to the inside of the case’s lid was a small origami crane. Sehun peeled it off and unfolded it.

Messy handwriting was scrawled in the center of the creased paper. The handwriting of a doctor, Sehun figured. Doctors always wrote like they were excruciatingly busy. Sehun supposed they always were.

_You saved my life. I hope this shows my gratitude._

Oh, right. A year ago, a homeless kid came into the bar asking for directions, and Sehun had given him some spare cash to pay for the train fare. They’d forgotten about that. It wasn’t the first time they’d helped out someone less fortunate than themselves—but it _was_ the first time any of them had come back to say thank you.

And, of course, it was the first time they’d paid Sehun back. Thousand fold, it seemed. Thousand fold.

Sehun shook their head. Some people were just born good like that, they supposed. First on Sehun’s to-do list was TO install a new radio in the bar. All these late nights were really getting to them—a bit of music would make things better.

###

In a different bar across the country, Renjun and Jeno were relaxing after a long day of work.

It was near midnight. They stood by the counter, having a light drink and murmuring to each other about things of no substance that were entertaining all the same. Anyone would have mistaken them for normal guys if not for the subtle way they held themselves. They were like tigers—tired and lazy and warm, nearly dozing, yet still with one eye open. Always, one eye open.

Sure enough, Jeno’s skin prickled as he felt the gaze of someone watching him.

“Don’t look now, but there’s someone at nine o’clock,” he murmured to Renjun. “I think they know you’re the mob boss. They’ve been looking over here a lot.”

Renjun cast a discreet glance over his shoulder to the left. “Oh.”

“Do you recognize him?”

“Nope.” He tugged Jeno closer by his belt loops, then slipped his arms around his waist.

Although Jeno was taken aback by the sudden physical touch, he certainly was not complaining, especially when Renjun’s hand deigned to dip into Jeno’s back jean pocket. Jeno sipped his drink, then offered some of it to Renjun, who sipped and then set it back down on the counter before leaning in to nose into Jeno’s neck. His breath smelled sweet.

“This all right?” Renjun murmured, pressing a kiss to his earlobe and letting out a light huff of laughter when Jeno twitched.

“Y-Yeah. Feels nice. Why though?”

“That person was checking you out, babe.”

It took Jeno a moment to process that. Even after all this time, or maybe _because_ of all this time, it was hard to get used to the idea that other people besides Renjun might find him attractive. “Oh. Okay?”

“Not okay,” Renjun objected. He reached up to turn Jeno’s face so he could kiss him properly. “You’re mine, aren’t you?”

 _Mine. Mine._ “Mmm,” Jeno said, chasing his lips.

He’d always harbored minor fantasies that Renjun would be the jealous type. He had been disappointed upon discovering that Renjun preferred his privacy, refraining from public displays of affection like hand holding or even a gaze too provocative. Jeno wasn’t one to ask him to do anything he didn’t like, so he just accepted it as the reality and moved on, because after all, there were plenty good things that went on behind closed doors. That didn’t mean that Renjun wasn’t mildly possessive, for lack of a softer word. It just wasn’t important to him to flaunt his relationship status—but if the subject ever happened to come up, Renjun had no qualms introducing Jeno as his partner and making it clear they were together.

After a long moment, Renjun leaned back, letting go of Jeno’s belt loops. He checked over his shoulder. “All right. Fun’s over; he’s done looking.” 

Jeno tried his best not to pout. “That . . . Well, okay, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you to keep touching me.” 

“Hmm? What’s that?”

“Come on.” Jeno pulled him closer.

Renjun resisted. He was wearing his best smile, the plain happy type. “I think I’ll need you to repeat that, baby.”

“Fine. Keep touching me.”

“All you had to do was say so,” Renjun purred, dipping forward. 

They kissed. They drank and kissed more, then talked about nothing and kissed more and more and more. They did this for the rest of the night, until the bartender politely tried to get them to leave. Without breaking his liplock with Jeno, Renjun politely slid a twenty over the counter to the bartender behind his back, and they took it without a word. Jeno laughed against Renjun’s mouth, accusing him of petty bribery, but Renjun just chuckled back and said so what.

Later that night, when they’d finally gotten back to the mansion and stumbled into bed together, they fell asleep side by side, a little tipsy, a little tired, but a lot happy. And so what? That was all that mattered.

###

The plym-colored ring on Donghyuck’s finger was taunting him these days. When he had bought the rings for Mark as a birthday gift a few months ago, neither of them had brought up the fact that they were obviously a pair of promise rings, although both of them were well aware. Since then, it had been a bit of an unspoken dare, to see who will finally make the move to change the rings to gold ones. Donghyuck was sure that half of Renjun’s employees had already placed their bets on who would propose first.

“You need to do it today,” Jaemin said, as he took off his swim goggles.

Donghyuck shook his head. “I can’t,” he said. “I haven’t made any plans. What if it all goes wrong? What if it feels too rushed? I have to hire a flash mob. I need to book a live jazz band. I need to put on my best suit!”

“You don’t even own any suits though.”

“I’ll steal one from Renjun’s master closet; I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. We’re basically BFFs now.”

Jaemin stopped in the middle of taking off his swim cap to peer at him. “He only tolerates you because he loves Jeno and Jeno tolerates you. Toleration by association.”

Donghyuck turned and looked at the enormous indoor Olympic-sized swimming pool, its clear aquamarine waters sparkling under the lights above. The wave-maker machine was still churning out waves. Haechan had rushed here right after his six a.m. shift at the guild, complete with a designer tote bag containing his swimsuit and towel, only to find that Jaemin already finished swimming and planned on heading to bed.

Ugh, Jaemin was no help. The problem was, Donghyuck had already sought consultation on his Mark-related dilemma with basically everyone he knew—firstly, Irene, because she was the closest thing to a mother-sister-aunt figure that he had. Secondly, Sicheng, who, in a long-term relationship with Taeil, was able to offer some counseling to ease Donghyuck’s poor nervous heart. Donghyuck had even gone to Jiwoo, his young, perky, starry-eyed coworker at the guild, who loved talking about love, day in and day out.

But no one could help him. Instead they said stuff like, _buy him a ring!_ Or, _some flowers and a sincere proclamation of your love will do the trick!_ Or even, _just do the get-down-on-one-knee thing and get it over with for fuck’s sake!!! Argghhh!!!_

(That last one was from Irene.)

“I’m telling you, you’ve been agonizing over this for so long by now,” Jaemin said. “Don’t you want to just marry him already?”

Donghyuck’s eyes widened. “Keep your voice down.”

“Oh, please.” Jaemin shook his head as he walked away, tossing his goggles and cap into his bag. “’Kay, I’m gonna hit the hay. You have fun splashing around, yeah?”

“Wait! Hold on. You can’t leave m—”

The door shut behind him. Donghyuck sighed.

By the time he’d pulled on his swim trunks and gone over to the diving board to jump in, his mind was back to nervousness. He bounced a couple times on the diving board, getting a feel for the springiness, and felt a vibration in his back pocket. Damn, he’d almost forgotten to take his phone out before jumping in.

It was a text from Jaemin. 

**Nana**

_You ready for this?_

_Zimzalabimmmmm~~~!_

**Duckie**

??

**Nana**

_You’ve got a visitor ;)_

_Try not to do gross stuff in Renjun’s pool okaaayy???_

_K bye <3 thank me later _

Donghyuck stared at his phone in confusion. Just then, the door to the swimming gymnasium opened with a harsh crack, and one (1) Mark Lee came bounding in, breathless and wild-eyed.

“Donghyuck!” he yelled.

Donghyuck slipped. The water was cold. Of _course_ it was cold. By the time he surfaced, Mark was hovering at the poolside and wearing his wide-eyed deer expression, the one that made him look like he was in the headlights of a speeding holo-car.

“Hey,” Donghyuck greeted him. 

“Hey,” Mark said, breathless. “Jaemin said you wanted to see me.”

Oh. So that had been what the text was about. Donghyuck cursed.

Mark faltered. Donghyuck noticed and rushed to assuage him. “No, no. I just—I don’t mean— _ugh_.” He ran his wet hands through his wet hair, which probably had a very wet, ugly outcome. Not the ideal proposal hairdo. This was not right.

Mark took a hesitant step backward. “Should I . . . . Do you want me to leave?”

“No,” Donghyuck said immediately.

“Want me to stay?”

“Yeah. Please do.”

Mark came closer, something in his gaze. “How long should I stick around?”

“Uh . . . However long you want, I guess. The water’s freezing though.”

“ _No_ . I mean, do you want me to _stick around_?”

He emphasized the two words. Donghyuck felt like he was missing something.

Then all of the sudden, he remembered his phone in his back pocket, soaked to the core. “Oh my God,” he said, pulling the poor mangled device out and holding it above the surface of the pool, watching an absolute waterfall pour out of the phone’s speaker. He should’ve invested in the waterproof holo-phone when he’d had the chance, but _no_ , he’d wanted to go vintage, and this is what it gave him. 

“Is that—did you just drown your phone?” Mark said. 

“Yes,” Donghyuck snapped. He stuffed the phone back in his pocket. No use trying to salvage it now. “Everything is your fault, Mark Lee.”

Mark was directly at the poolside now. “What do you mean?”

He still had that _look_ in his eyes. Donghyuck was intrigued, and also a little terrified, and it really said something that this average-ass boy was able to make Lee Haechan so fucking nervous. Haechan ranked as one of the finest assassins in the nation—but he was still no match for Mark Lee.

“You! Everything! Your fault. Don’t talk to me.”

He tried to swim away, but Mark’s hand shot out and grabbed the sleeve of his rashguard. He looked excited. Trust him to be thrilled by Donghyuck’s bout of aggression.

“What are you saying? Hyuck, do you . . . ? Is there? Do you have something you want to tell me?”

“No,” Donghyuck sniffed. He pulled away. Mark promptly tumbled into the pool, his fist was still attached to Donghyuck’s shirt. The younger gasped and grabbed him by the shoulders to hold him upright while Mark coughed up water and blinked rapidly, eyes large and doe-like. Yes, again with the deer analogies. Donghyuck wanted to make deer analogies for Mark for the rest of his life.

Oh. 

“Yes,” Donghyuck blurted.

“Yes what?” Mark coughed.

“Stick around. Forever and ever. Always. I want you to do that for me,” Donghyuck said. “Can you do that for me?”

Mark stopped rubbing his eye to look up at him from under his wet, stringy bangs. He was smiling, his small, soft smile.

“Yeah,” he said. “I can.”

Donghyuck kissed him, and then leaned back, and kissed him again. “Good. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you’d said no.”

And that was it. Really, it was that simple. He had no clue why he had been stressing about this so much.

  
  
  


“Jaemin will want to make the cake,” Mark mused, later on, when they had been swimming around in the water so long that their fingers had gotten pruny and they’d kissed each other to the point of asphyxiation.

Donghyuck had been floating on his back. He stood upright, water cascading off his shoulders, to look at him. “Do we trust Nana with our cake?” he asked.

“You know, I was thinking about that,” Mark began. (Donghyuck’s heart pounded at the thought of Mark planning their wedding before they’d made it official. Talk about a dream come true.) “Instead of a cake, how about we just . . . have a fruit salad? Hear me out. It’s healthier, and more original. And I love watermelon! It’s perfect! And so I thought—”

“You want our cake to be a fruit salad?” 

Mark looked at him hopefully. “Yeah?”

Donghyuck waded toward him, kissed his cheek briefly, then pulled back.

“We are not having a watermelon for our wedding cake,” he said decisively. “Plus, I’m divorcing you.”

“What—? We haven’t even gotten married yet.”

“Irrelevant! I am not eating melon at my sacred matrimonial ceremony. Mark Lee, you are ridiculous.”

“You love me,” Mark protested.

 _You love me. You love me_.

He did. Watermelon salads, and all.

### 

They ended up going with watermelon-flavored popsicles instead of cake. The five famous female assassin guild members showed up to congratulate him, along with Sicheng and Taeil. Chenle played the piano. Everyone cried, except Jisung, who was trying his best to clap while also munching enthusiastically on the footlong baguettes in each of his hands. It was the finest French bread, baked the old-fashioned way with a real oven and everything. It had been Jaemin’s idea, since he’d known that Donghyuck liked retro things. You couldn’t get more retro than oven-baked, non-pseudo bread.

Mark looked illegally hot in his tuxedo. Donghyuck was definitely going to find excuses to make him wear that all the time. No wonder Chenle talked so much about liking to see Jisung in the black turtleneck uniform—everything just looked better in black. Mark especially. Or maybe it was just that everything looked better on _Mark_. Although Donghyuck could have been biased. Mark was technically his husband now, after all. They even had gold rings now, instead of the plym colored ones. There was nothing more he could’ve asked for.

###

The next day, after sending Mark and Donghyuck away on their ten-day honeymoon, Jeno poked his head in to Jaemin’s room say a quick good morning before he went to his office to start the day’s work.

The greeting died on his lips. Jaemin was sitting at his desk, _not_ at his virtual holo-racing game station or in bed, both of which were typical Jaemin lounging places. Instead he was at his desk, surrounded by brightly colored holo-books with a dizzying amount of foreign titles on them. He looked deep in thought, his brow furrowed at the workbook sitting on his desk.

“Whoa,” Jeno said. “What’s going on?”

Jaemin looked up at him briefly. “Mm. Hi. Just studying.”

“Since when do you study?”

“Kevin invited me over to dinner on Thursday.”

Jeno counted in his head. That was in two days. “Oh, I see. That’s nice of him.”

Jaemin set his pencil down. “No, no. Did you hear me? He invited me to his _house_ . That means I’m going to meet his _parents_ . He’s really close to them.” He leaned back into his chair, running his hand down his face. “Oh, God, Jeno. What am I going to say? What am I going to do? I don’t know how to act around parents. What even _are_ parents?”

Jeno’s mouth opened, then closed.

Jaemin had never had parents. Not really. And Jeno didn’t remember much of his own, considering that they’d passed away in a car crash long ago. 

“I’m sure his parents will love you,” he finally said, managing to speak past the wave of sudden impromptu sadness.

“Yeah, well, Kev says they don’t speak much English. They’re really old-fashioned, too—what if they don’t accept that I’m a stripper? What if they don’t accept that I’m gay? Do you think they can tell I’m gay? Just by, like, looking at me, I mean.”

He looked genuinely concerned. Jeno didn’t know how to break it to him that Kevin’s parents probably were aware and accepting of the fact that Kevin worked at a strip club. Also, Kevin would be introducing Jaemin as his boyfriend, which—well, boyfriends of boys did tend to be gay.

“You don’t need to worry,” Jeno said. “What are you studying, anyway?” He leaned forward to peer at the holo-books. “Oh! Korean workbooks.”

“Korean workbooks,” Jaemin agreed. “I’ve been studying this as hard as Mark has been studying for the past few days, Jen. And Mark’s a _med_ student. You know how much he studies. This language is hard as fuck. The things I do for Kevin.”

“Ha. Welcome to the club.”

“Shoo. I have topic particles to learn.”

Jeno left the room smiling.

###

Renjun had never been a snuggle-hungry person before he’d met Jeno. Then again, he had to admit he hadn’t been much of a person in general before he’d met Jeno. He couldn’t say he disliked the change.

“You’re wearing the new pajamas I got you,” Renjun said appraisingly as he took in Jeno, who had just emerged from his evening shower.

Indeed, he was dressed in blue plaid from head to toe. Renjun had debated between buying the pajamas in a size purposefully a bit small or a size purposefully a bit large. There were pros and cons to both, of course; small meant he could see Jeno’s muscles through the fabric, but big meant that Jeno would look all tiny and cuddly in them.

He’d gone with the bigger size. It’d been the right choice—Jeno was looking awfully, awfully cuddly right now.

“Come here,” he said, opening his arms.

Jeno shook his head. “Hang on, I have to take off my contact lenses first. Have you seen my glasses?”

“Mm, I think I saw them on the dresser a little while ago.”

Renjun waited patiently (read: impatiently) for Jeno to remove his lenses and get into bed. Once Jeno did, sinking into the sheets with a sigh of fatigue and happiness at being able to lie down after a long day, Renjun crawled up onto him and settled him into his arms with a koala-like hug. Jeno laughed a little in surprise at the influx of affection.

“We want cuddles today, do we?”

Renjun pressed his cheek against Jeno’s chest. “Yes. We do.”

After a little while, he asked, as part of routine, “Any new flashbacks today?”

“Hmm. Wait, actually, yeah. I was hungry during my video call with the prime minister of England so I pulled up a tab of pictures of dumplings and suddenly I remembered that we used to eat dumplings together at your parents’ house when we were little. In the little porcelain bowls.”

Renjun perked up. “Yeah, that’s right. You ate them with your fingers because you were terrible with chopsticks. My parents made amazing dumplings—they would always sing Chinese folk songs while they fried them. The whole house would smell good.”

“Chinese folk songs, huh?”

Jeno’s eyes had taken on a faraway glassiness. This happened sometimes. Mid-conversation, too. Renjun waited.

“That was nice,” Jeno said, when he returned.

“Yeah? You remember it?”

Jeno nodded and hummed a little bit of the melody. Renjun felt nostalgia wash over him, and he snuggled against Jeno even more firmly, feeling bittersweetly happy. Oh, his parents. He missed them. They would be glad to know he was with Jeno now—they would be glad that he was so well taken care of.

“My parents always liked you, you know.”

When Renjun poked his head up, Jeno was wearing that beautiful crescent smile. Renjun’s heart squeezed. In a moment of fleeting hesitation, he bit down on his bottom lip, before raising himself up on his elbows, pressing a quick butterfly kiss against each of Jeno’s eyelids, then settling back into his former position and mumbling something half-coherent about Jeno having pretty eyes.

Jeno let out a surprised laugh.

“You’re cute.”

“No you,” Renjun said.

“You’re sappy.”

“You like me,” he said in protest.

“I bet you’re only dating me because you like my pretty eyes,” Jeno said.

“Oh, yes. You’ve caught me.”

“I’ve caught you.” Jeno giggled and his arm came up to rest atop Renjun’s waist. “Got you.”

“Got me,” he agreed.

They had each other.

###

The next evening Jeno slammed open Renjun’s office door and proudly declared, “라면 먹고 갈래?”

Renjun looked up from his desk, where he was finishing up the day’s work. He blinked a few times. “. . . Jeno?”

“What?” Jeno said, his smile dropping. “Hmm. Did I pronounce it wrong?”

Renjun coughed. “Uh. Who taught you how to say that?” 

“Jaemin did. I wanted to impress you.”

Renjun blinked, then started to laugh. He got up, walked over, and pulled him in for a smiley sort of kiss. Jeno kissed back, of course, but he was confused. He’d only told him that he’d finished all his work early today! He’d thought Renjun would like it.

Renjun began to kiss his way down Jeno’s jaw. He had a bit of a fixation for his jaw, Jeno had come to learn. “Let’s go out to eat tonight, babe,” he murmured. “We’ll get you your ramen.”

“Ramen? I didn’t say . . . .”

He got distracted by the way Renjun’s mouth was moving on his neck. Eventually, Renjun pulled back long enough to say, again with that faint amused tone:

“Don’t get your Korean lessons from Jaemin. _I_ can give you lessons. Here. Privately.”

Jeno’s voice came out hoarse. “Why does that sound kind of naughty, babe?” 

“Because it is,” Renjun said, rising up to kiss his lips, and then his mouth opened under Jeno’s and Jeno had no more thoughts.

###

The days passed in pleasant blurs. Soon enough it was the fourth of July, an ancient annual festival that had its roots in some historical context that Renjun couldn’t care to remember. The part he did know was that this year, the fireworks were sponsored by Jung Yoonoh’s Color Factorial.

To celebrate the occasion, they had gone to the local park. The basketball court. Renjun, Jeno, and Jeno’s brothers, that is. All three of the Lee siblings had a way with the ball, easy and comfortable, looking natural. 

Renjun sat on the sidelines, elbows resting on his knees as he watched the brothers pass the ball around. The concrete was warm under his feet, and the air was cool and fresh in his lungs. He felt at peace.

After a little while, Jeno came over, sweaty and a little out of breath. He propped the basketball against his hip and smiled down at Renjun.

“Wanna play?”

 _Deja vu_. From the tilt of Jeno’s head to the easiness in his smile and the ball tucked under his arm . . . It was a scene straight out of Renjun’s painting, the one he’d made when he was thirteen. So young, painfully young. And now he was older, but still young in a few ways, and all of it was in the way he loved Jeno. 

Renjun climbed to his feet.

“There’s no time for me to play. The fireworks are going to start soon.”

They spread out a gingham blanket. Took out the donuts they’d packed. Settled down, and watched the sky.

When the show began and the first firework went up in the sky, Renjun felt awed. Yoonoh had outdone himself this year. That is, every year, he came out with a full line of brand-new colors, but this year his creations had taken the market by a storm. It was truly magnificent. The fireworks were bold and beautiful and _loud_.

They gazed at the sky, full of all kinds of colors. Young ones, iconic ones, new ones, and wild ones that weren’t quite like anything anyone had ever seen. They burst in the shape of crescents and suns and stars, glittering the horizon with the beauty of a thousand paintings.

“It’s so colorful,” Jeno murmured, his eyes full of sky.

Renjun smiled. “No, my love,” he said. “It’s crimeful.”

_The End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this fanfiction ... wow. i have grown so much through the experience of writing this fic. firstly, in my writing style, finding my voice, analyzing the plot choices i made- and secondly, being able to stretch my brain over such an enormous scope of content is just- i'm so proud of myself. and i'm grateful for everyone who read this entire monster. 
> 
> thank you for 400 kudos, thank you to all those who left those precious comments that fueled me through all my low days ... thank you to my cousin for being my hypeman, to my beta for being my best friend, and to princepixel for being the first person to leave an essay comment for me (everyone say thank you to pix without them i think i would have discontinued this fic at chapter 12 cri) (pix ur a lifesaver). and thank you to all ye lovely readers. please know that each of your handles and pfps have their own little cabinets in my brain space because i am clingy like that :'D
> 
> another note: 라면 먹고 갈래 (the thing that Jeno said to Renjun) actually means "netflix and chill" hah jaemin being a trickster as always
> 
> anyway. yes. thank you for reading my story, everyone! this work is part of a series all set in the same universe and i have plans to post some more fics (hint hint: mh, itzy) in this series soon, so keep an eye out.
> 
> okay. time to hit post.
> 
> love, love, and love again,  
> yerin 111820

**Author's Note:**

> [twt](https://twitter.com/_regret_me_not)   
>  [cc](https://curiouscat.me/_regret_me_not)


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